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Individual Steamed Puddings
Steam any of the foregoing varieties, and any other kinds made of cake mixtures in egg cups. They rise rounded on top and do not fall like souffles. From 30 minutes to one hour is required for steaming, according to the kind, sponge puddings being soonest done. In restaurants they are commonly served in the cups with sauce in a little pitcher separate; but may be turned out and served in saucers as well.
This is a method rather than a formula: it tells you what to do with any of the pudding or cake batters given earlier in the book. The hinge is heat control — a steamer at a bare simmer, not a rolling boil.
- What an egg cup holdsEgg cups vary, but most hold somewhere between 2 and 3 fluid ounces (about 60-80 ml). Ramekins, small custard cups, dariole moulds or a muffin tin set in a covered roasting pan all work; adjust timing down for anything shallower.
- Fill levelTwo-thirds full. These mixtures rise domed and hold their shape, as the text says, so they will not sink back to give you room the way a souffle does.
- Grease even if serving in the cupButter the cups and dust with sugar or flour. It matters most if you intend to turn them out, but it also keeps the crust from tearing when a spoon goes in.
- Cover the cupsIn a covered pot or steamer basket, condensation drips; lay buttered parchment or foil loosely over the tops or the domes will be pocked and soggy.
- Water level and simmerWater should come no more than halfway up the cups if you are setting them in a pan, and it should tremble rather than boil. A hard boil rocks the cups and gives you a coarse, tunnelled crumb.
- TimingsThirty minutes suits a light sponge mixture in an egg cup, which the text says is soonest done; denser or richer batters will want longer, up to the hour given. Test with a skewer to the centre - it should come out clean and the top should spring back.
- ServingRestaurant practice, as the text has it, was to serve them in the cups with the sauce in a little pitcher alongside; turned out into saucers, they want the sauce poured over at once. Hard sauce, custard, or a thin lemon or wine sauce would be the usual period companions.
- YieldNone is given, because it depends on the parent recipe. Count on filling the cups two-thirds full and judge the number from the volume of batter you have.
The American Pastry Cook belongs to the run of late nineteenth-century American trade manuals written for hotel and restaurant kitchens rather than households, which is why this entry reads as a shop instruction ote the aside about how the cups are "commonly served in restaurants." Steamed puddings themselves are inherited from British practice, where the method is often said to have suited kitchens without reliable oven heat, though cloth-boiled puddings preceded the pudding basin; boiling or steaming gives a moist, close crumb that will not dry out on a steam table. Portioning them into egg cups is a professional economy: a single batter yields uniform individual desserts that can be held hot and plated to order, and the point about them rising rounded and not falling is a working cook's reassurance.