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Cheese Pudding (Take three ounces of grated)
949. Take three ounces of grated cheese, a tea-cupful of grated bread, a good pinch of salt and white pepper, four eggs, leaving out two of the whites, and half a pint of good cream; beat all together, and put it into a mould lined with writing-paper. Half an hour will bake it; take it out of the mould, and send it to table in the paper in which it was baked.
A baked cheese custard of the plainest kind, closer to a crustless quiche than to the bread-and-cheese bakes that later took the name. It stands or falls on gentle heat.
- Bake it slowNo temperature is given. Treat this as a custard and use around 325F; a hotter oven curdles the eggs and cream and weeps liquid. Half an hour suits a mould of roughly the size this quantity of mixture would fill, but test with a knife at the centre, which should come out just clean.
- Half a pint of creamImperial measure, so 10 fl oz. Single cream or half-and-half sets more delicately here than double cream, which can go greasy against the cheese.
- A tea-cupful of breadTeacups varied; a quarter-pint (about 5 fl oz) is the usual equivalent given in English cookery books, so roughly a cup of grated fresh crumbs, in the region of 1 1/2 to 2 oz. Grated bread of this period generally meant crumb grated from a stale loaf rather than dried crumb.
- The eggsFour eggs less two whites gives four yolks and two whites. The extra yolks are what make the pudding rich and tender rather than rubbery; do not substitute whole eggs.
- Which cheeseA dry, sharp hard cheese is what is wanted, Cheshire or a mature Cheddar, grated fine. Three ounces sounds modest against ten of cream, and it is: this is a mild savoury, not a fondue. Add pepper generously.
- Writing-paperPaper was a common lining for moulds in this period. Use parchment, cut to line the mould with a collar standing above the rim, and it will lift out and travel to the table as directed.
- YieldServes four as a savoury course or a light supper dish with a salad.