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Orange and Macaroon Pudding
1/3 pound almond macaroons 1 pint milk 4 eggs 1/2 cup sugar 2 oranges Soak the almond macaroons in the milk until soft. Beat the eggs and add to them the sugar and the grated rind of one orange. Do not grate in any of the white pith, as it spoils the flavor. Stir the mixture carefully into the macaroons and add the juice of two oranges. Pour into an oiled mold and set on a stand or ring in a kettle of boiling water. Simmer steadily for an hour. Serve hot with orange sauce.
A steamed custard thickened with crushed macaroons rather than flour. The whole thing hinges on gentle heat: the water in the kettle should shiver, not roll, or the eggs curdle and the pudding weeps.
- MacaroonsThe recipe means almond macaroons, not the chewy coconut kind and not French macarons; period almond macaroons ranged from crisp to slightly chewy, so a dry amaretti-style cookie is the closest modern stand-in. One-third pound is about 5 oz, perhaps a dozen or so small cookies; break them up before soaking so they slump evenly into the milk.
- SoakingSoak in the pint (2 cups) of milk until the macaroons are genuinely soft -- a quarter of an hour or so for crisp ones. Mash them to a coarse paste with a fork; lumps of dry cookie will stay dry in the finished pudding.
- Adding the juiceOrange juice is acidic enough to curdle milk, which is presumably why the recipe adds it last. Stir it in quickly and get the pudding into the mold and over heat rather than letting the mixture stand.
- Zest, not pithThe instruction is worth heeding. Use a microplane and take only the coloured layer; the white beneath turns bitter as it cooks.
- The mold and the kettleA 1 1/2-quart mold, buttered or oiled, set on a rack or trivet so the base is off the pot floor. Pour boiling water to come halfway up the mold, cover the kettle, and keep it at a bare simmer, topping up with boiling water as it drops.
- DonenessAn hour is about right, but judge by set: the center should barely wobble and a knife inserted off-center comes out clean, around 170-175F. Overcooked, it goes grainy and releases liquid.
- Yield and servingPerhaps six modest servings. Let it stand five minutes before turning out, or it may crack. The recipe does not give the orange sauce it calls for; period orange sauces were generally orange juice and zest with sugar, sometimes thickened with cornstarch or arrowroot.