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Plum Pudding Sauce
1/4 cup butter 1 cup powdered sugar 2 tablespoons cider 2 eggs 1/2 cup rich milk or cream Cream the butter and powdered sugar. Add the cider and the well-beaten yolks of the eggs. When well mixed, stir in the milk or cream. Cook in a double boiler until it is as thick as a custard and then gradually pour it into the beaten whites of the eggs, beating constantly.
A foamy custard sauce for steamed pudding: cooked yolk base, raw whites folded in at the end for volume. It is served the moment it is made.
- Powdered sugarIn this period "powdered sugar" meant finely ground sugar, which was not necessarily the cornstarch-containing confectioners' sugar sold today. Either modern confectioners' sugar or superfine granulated will serve here; the granulated gives a slightly thinner result.
- CiderIn American cookbooks of this period cider usually means sweet, unfermented apple cider. Use fresh cider or good unfiltered apple juice. Hard cider would add alcohol and more acid, which can make the custard likelier to curdle.
- Double boiler heatKeep the water below a simmer and the bowl clear of it. The yolk base should reach roughly 170-175F and coat the spoon; boiling water underneath will scramble it, and the cider's acid makes it more fragile than a plain custard.
- The hinge: pour hot into the whitesThe custard must go into the beaten whites hot and in a thin stream, with constant beating. That is what sets the foam and partly cooks the whites. Cold custard folded in gives a slack, weeping sauce.
- Uncooked whitesThe whites are only warmed by the incoming custard, not fully cooked. If serving anyone elderly, pregnant, very young or immune-compromised, use pasteurized shell eggs or pasteurized whites.
- Beat the whites correctlySoft to medium peaks work better than stiff and dry; very stiff whites tend to break into lumps when the hot custard hits them rather than loosening into a smooth foam.
- Yield and servingRoughly a cup and a half of base, more once the beaten whites are in; enough for six to eight servings of plum pudding. Serve within a few minutes of finishing, as it separates as it stands.