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Lemon Pudding
Slice one lemon and cook it five minutes in two cups of water. Take 2 tbsp. of cornstarch and wet it with a little cold water, and then stir it into the lemon water; then put yolks of two eggs in and 1 cup of sugar, beat the whites of eggs stiff and fold them in.
— Miss L. M. Ketcham
A stovetop cornstarch pudding with no oven step and no quantities beyond the essentials. The written order of operations is loose, and following it literally gives you scrambled yolk in lemon water, so read the sequence before you start.
- The hinge: temper the yolksBeat the yolks with the sugar in a separate bowl, then whisk a ladle of the hot lemon-cornstarch mixture into them before returning everything to the pan. Stirring cold yolks straight into near-boiling starch, as the text implies, curdles them.
- Cornstarch has to boilTwo tablespoons of cornstarch in two cups of liquid will not set until the mixture actually comes to a bubble and holds it for a minute or so. Off-boil starch tastes chalky and stays loose.
- Deal with the peelA whole sliced lemon simmered in the water contributes pith as well as juice, which turns the pudding bitter if it steeps too long. Strain the slices out after the five minutes, or use the zest plus the juice of one lemon and skip the simmering.
- The whitesFolded into the hot base off the heat, the whites will be warmed but not cooked through. If that concerns you, spread them over the top as a meringue instead and brown it.
- Sugar and lemon balanceOne cup of sugar to one lemon is sweet by modern taste. Two-thirds of a cup, with the juice of a second lemon, gives a sharper pudding closer to a lemon curd.
- YieldFour small dishes. Chill at least two hours; it thickens considerably as it cools.
Church-society cookbooks like this one — a Philathea class was a young women's Bible study group, and their fundraising cookbooks were assembled from members' contributed recipes, each signed — are full of cornstarch puddings. Cornstarch had become a cheap, reliable pantry staple by the late nineteenth century, and it let a household make a smooth set dessert without the expense of a lot of eggs or the fuss of a baked custard. The pattern here is standard for the type: an acid or flavoring cooked in water, thickened with starch, enriched with a yolk or two, and lightened with the whites. The same base, poured into a baked shell rather than a dish, is lemon meringue pie.