Rice Blancmange
INGREDIENTS for quart mould. lb. of ground rice, 3 oz. of loaf sugar, 1 oz. of fresh butter, 1 quart of milk, flavouring of lemon-peel, essence of almonds or vanilla, or laurel-leaves. AVERAGE COST, 8d.
Mix the rice to a smooth batter with about 1/2 pint of the milk, and the remainder put into a saucepan, with the sugar, butter and whichever of the above flavourings may be preferred; bring the milk to the boiling point, quickly stir in the rice, and let it boil for about 10 minutes, or until it comes easily away from the saucepan, keeping it well stirred the whole time. Grease a mould with pure salad-oil, pour in the rice and let it get perfectly set, when it should turn out quite easily; garnish it with jam, or pour round a compote of any kind of fruit, just before it is sent to table.
This blancmange is better for being made the day before it is wanted, as it then has time to become EARS OF RICE.
RICE, CASSEROLE OF.
A plain moulded rice pudding set without gelatine — the starch alone does the work. It stands or falls on cooking the rice long enough to thicken properly.
- The rice quantity is unclearThe weight of ground rice has dropped out of the line; only "lb." survives. Comparable Victorian recipes for a quart of milk use about 4 oz (a quarter pound) of ground rice, but treat that as an inference rather than the book's figure.
- Ground rice, not rice flourGround rice is coarser than rice flour and gives a slightly grainy set. Rice flour will work but produces a smoother, softer mould; either must be slaked with cold milk first or it will lump.
- Laurel leavesVictorian cooks flavoured creams with cherry-laurel leaves, which carry cyanogenic compounds and were a documented cause of poisoning. Ignore that option entirely and use lemon peel, vanilla or almond essence. Culinary bay is not the same plant and is not a substitute here.
- Loaf sugarLoaf sugar was refined sugar broken from a cone. Ordinary granulated sugar, 3 oz (about 6 tablespoons), is the direct equivalent.
- The ten minutes mattersBoil and stir until the mass visibly pulls away from the pan sides in a single body. Undercooked, it will not release from the mould; the test is the texture, not the clock.
- Greasing the mould"Pure salad-oil" means a bland oil; in this period salad-oil generally meant olive. A neutral oil applied thinly is better than butter, which sets solid and grips.
- Quart mouldAn imperial quart is about 1.14 litres, so a 1.1-litre mould or pudding basin. Enough for roughly six as a dessert, though the book gives no yield.
- Make it the day beforeThe instruction is sound: overnight chilling firms the starch gel so it turns out cleanly. Cover the surface to prevent a skin, and dip the mould briefly in warm water before unmoulding.
Blancmange began as a medieval dish of pounded almonds and capon or rice, its name simply French for "white food", and by the nineteenth century it had narrowed to a white moulded sweet. Beeton's household books give several versions: the expensive kind stiffened with isinglass or gelatine, and cheaper ones like this, where ground rice supplies the set for eightpence. Ground rice was a staple of the Victorian store cupboard for exactly this reason — it thickened milk reliably and cost far less than gelatine or arrowroot. The elaborate copper and earthenware moulds of the period explain the emphasis on turning out cleanly; the pudding's whole appeal lay in arriving at table as a shape, ringed with jam or stewed fruit for colour.