Italian Pudding
INGREDIENTS for pudding for 6 to 8 persons. lb. of any kinds of plain sweet biscuits, 6 macaroons or 2 dozen ratafias, 1 oz. of sultanas, 2 oz. of candied peel, 1 oz. of pistachio nuts, 1/4 pint of cream, 1/2 wineglass of rum, 8 eggs.
AVERAGE COST, 2s. 3d.
Pound in a mortar the biscuits and ratafias or macaroons to a powder, chop the candied peel, pistachio nuts and sultanas finely and mix with the eggs, beaten, and the rum and cream. Put the mixture in a mould, buttered and lined with paper; cook in a bain marie for 1 hour and serve with Italian punch sauce.
TIME.-1 hour.
SEASONABLE at any time.
ITALIAN SAUCE.
Italian Punch Sauce. INGREDIENTS for sauce for 1 pudding.-2 wineglasses of rum, 1/2 lb. of loaf sugar, the juice of 1 orange if in season, if not, that of a lemon, flavouring of vanilla or lemon.
AVERAGE COST, 7d.
Put all, except the fruit juice, in a saucepan and mix thoroughly. A few minutes before the sauce is required set it on the fire, flame the spirit and, after covering the pan for a minute, add the juice and strain.
TIME.-5 minutes.
SEASONABLE. -Can be served with any hot rich pudding.
A steamed biscuit-crumb custard, closer to a rich bread pudding than to anything Italian, served with a hot rum syrup. The text as printed has lost the quantity of biscuits, which is the one thing you must settle before starting.
- The missing biscuit weightThe ingredient list reads "lb. of any kinds of plain sweet biscuits" — a fraction has dropped out in printing, and there is no way to recover it with certainty. Judging by the 8 eggs and 1/4 pint of cream, 1/2 lb (about 225 g) of crumbs gives a mixture that holds together; 1/4 lb produces something much looser and more custard-like.
- Ratafias and macaroonsRatafias are small, hard almond biscuits, roughly the size of a hazelnut; two dozen weigh very little. Italian amaretti, particularly the crisp kind, are the closest thing on a modern shelf, and six soft macaroons can stand in for the alternative.
- Wineglass and gillWineglass and cream measures -- A Victorian wineglass in a recipe means about 2 fl oz (60 ml), so half a wineglass is a scant 2 tablespoons in the pudding and about 1/2 cup of rum in the sauce. A quarter pint of cream is 5 fl oz in imperial measure, a little over half a US cup.
- Bain marieSet the buttered, paper-lined mould in a tin and pour in boiling water to come halfway up; the original gives no oven and no temperature, only gentle water-bath heat. Gentle heat is the hinge here: 8 eggs to a quarter pint of cream is a very high proportion of egg, and anything approaching a boil will curdle and weep the custard rather than set it smooth.
- Lining the mouldButter, then a disc of parchment on the base and a collar round the side, buttered again. A plain charlotte mould or a 1.5-quart pudding basin both work; cover the top loosely with foil to stop a skin forming.
- Loaf sugarLoaf sugar was refined sugar sold in a solid cone and broken up as needed. Ordinary granulated or cube sugar is the direct replacement — half a pound is about 1 cup plus 2 tablespoons.
- Flaming the sauceHalf a pound of sugar to two wineglasses of rum makes a thick syrup rather than a pourable sauce; warm it only until the sugar dissolves before lighting it. Take the pan off the heat to ignite, keep a lid within reach, and burn off for no more than a few seconds — the covering step in the original is what puts the flame out.
- Testing and servingAn hour is right for a mould of about 1.5 quarts; the pudding is done when the centre is just set and a skewer comes out clean. Rest it 10 minutes before turning out, and serve for 6 to 8 as the original states.
Nineteenth-century English cookery attached the word "Italian" fairly loosely to any sweet dish involving macaroons, ratafias, pistachios or candied peel — all of them present here, whatever the routes by which they reached British kitchens. The pudding itself belongs to a large family of Victorian moulded custards steamed in a bain marie, a French technique Mrs Beeton's editors used constantly for anything too delicate for a direct boil. The costing of 2s 3d, given alongside almost every recipe in the later Beeton editions, is worth noticing: it marks this as a dish for a household keeping accounts, expensive enough for a dinner party but not extravagant. Punch sauces of spirit, sugar and citrus, flamed at the table or just before it, were a standard finish for rich hot puddings through the second half of the century, and the same formula survives in the brandy sauces still poured over Christmas pudding.