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Curd Puffs, or Puddings
956. Turn a quart of new milk to a curd with rennet, drain in a cloth, and then rub through a sieve with a quarter of a pound of butter beaten; add two ounces of ground rice, or a quarter of a pound of bread-crumbs, a little nutmeg, grated lemon-peel, a spoonful of wine and brandy, and sugar to your taste. Bake a little more than half an hour in buttered cups.
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A baked fresh-curd pudding, closer to a cheesecake batter than to a puff. The whole thing hinges on getting a firm, well-drained curd before anything else is added.
- Milk and rennet"New milk" means fresh whole milk, not skimmed and not ultra-pasteurised — UHT and some heavily pasteurised milk will not set with rennet. An imperial quart is about 5 US cups; use rennet tablets or liquid animal or vegetable rennet at the dose on the packet, and hold the milk around 100F until it sets.
- DrainingCut the set curd, ladle into a cloth-lined sieve and let it drain an hour or more until it stops dripping. A wet curd gives a slack, weeping pudding. A quart of milk yields only a few ounces of drained curd — roughly 6-8 oz, depending on how long you let it drip.
- Oven heatNo temperature is given. A moderate oven, 350F, suits this; the puddings are done when set at the centre and just coloured on top.
- Ground riceGround rice is rice flour, coarser than the modern superfine sort but interchangeable here. It absorbs more liquid than the breadcrumb alternative, so the two versions are likely to bake to slightly different textures.
- Butter "beaten"Soften the butter and cream it before working it through the sieve with the curd, otherwise you get cold lumps that leak fat in the oven.
- Wine and brandy"A spoonful of wine and brandy" probably means a spoonful of each, though it could be one spoonful of the two combined; sweet sherry or Madeira stands in for the unspecified "wine". Sugar to taste means about 2-3 oz for this quantity if the puddings are to be eaten as a sweet.
- Vessels and yield"Buttered cups" are small ovenproof cups or ramekins — ramekins of about 4 fl oz work well. Expect about four to six, and stand them in a roasting tin if your oven runs hot at the base.
- ServingTurn out or serve in the cups, warm rather than hot, with cream or a spoonful of preserve. They set further as they cool and are best eaten the day they are baked.