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Orange Pudding, Seville
INoranges, 4 oz. of fresh butter, 12 almonds, 1/2 lb. of sifted sugar, the juice of 1 lemon, 6 eggs. AVERAGE COST, 18. 9d. INGREDIENTS for large pudding.—4 Seville oranges, 4 oz. of fresh butter, 12 almonds, 1/2 lb. of sifted sugar, the juice of 1 lemon, 6 eggs. AVERAGE COST, 1s. 9d.
Boil the oranges and chop them finely, the almonds, blanched and chopped, and the taking out all the pips. Put the butter, sugar, into a saucepan, to which add the orange-pulp and the lemon-juice. Put it on ORANGE SALAD. a hot-plate to warm, mixing all together until the butter is thoroughly melted. Turn the mixture out, let it get cold, then add the eggs, which should be well whipped.
Put all into a baking-dish, bordered with puff-paste, and bake from 1/2 hour to 40 minutes, according to the heat of the oven.
TIME.- hour to 40 minutes.
SEASONABLE from November to May.
A Victorian baked orange custard set in a dish edged with puff pastry, closer to a lemon-curd tart filling than to a steamed pudding. Two steps carry the whole dish: boiling the fruit until soft, and cooling the butter-sugar-pulp mixture completely before the eggs go in.
- Cool before the eggsThe warmed butter, sugar and pulp must be fully cold when the beaten eggs are added, or they will set into threads on contact. Once combined, do not reheat on the stove; the only cooking is in the oven.
- Seville orangesThese are the bitter marmalade oranges, in season roughly January to March and sold frozen or bottled the rest of the year. They are far more acidic and aromatic than sweet oranges; if you substitute navels, the pudding will be flat and the 1/2 lb of sugar will be too much.
- Boiling the fruitWhole Sevilles need a good hour of simmering, with a change of water partway if you want to soften the bitterness of the peel. They are done when a skewer slides through the skin without resistance. Drain and cool before chopping, and pick out every pip.
- Quantity of orangesThe number has not survived legibly in this text. For 4 oz butter, 1/2 lb sugar and 6 eggs, two to three medium Sevilles gives a balanced filling.
- AlmondsTwelve almonds is a garnish quantity rather than a bulk ingredient. Blanch by pouring boiling water over them, slipping off the skins, then chopping finely; they are folded through for texture.
- OvenThe original leaves the heat to judgement. A moderate oven, 350F, for 30 to 40 minutes will set a custard of this depth. It is done when the centre barely trembles; carryover heat finishes it.
- The pastry borderA band of puff paste around the rim of the baking dish, not a full lining. Chill it well before filling so it rises rather than slumping into the custard.
- YieldNo number of servings is given in the text; a filling on this scale, with 6 eggs and 1/2 lb sugar, would serve about six as a dessert course. Serve just warm or at room temperature; chilled, the butter firms and dulls the flavour.
Seville oranges reached English kitchens as a winter luxury and were valued precisely for being too sour to eat out of hand: their acidity and high pectin made them the marmalade fruit, and their juice served as a souring agent in an era before lemons were cheap year-round. The "seasonable from November to May" window is considerably wider than the bitter-orange season proper, which falls mainly between December and February. Puddings of this type -- citrus pulp, butter, sugar and eggs baked in a pastry-edged dish -- run through English cookery from the eighteenth century onward and are related to later lemon curds and lemon tarts; the Beeton household editions carry a number of similar formulas varying chiefly in the fruit. The average cost in shillings and pence is a fixture of the Beeton books and one of their more distinctive features: it let a mistress of the house budget a dinner before she ordered it.