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Little Bread Puddings
860. Steep the crumbs of a penny loaf grated in about a pint of warm milk; when soaked, beat six eggs, whites and yolks, and mix with the bread, and two ounces of butter warmed, sugar, orange-flower water, a spoonful of brandy, a little nutmeg, and a teacupful of cream. Beat all well, and bake in teacups buttered. If currants are chosen, a quarter of a pound is sufficient; if not, they are good without; or you may put orange or lemon candy. Serve up with pudding-sauce.
A baked bread custard set in individual cups — essentially a bread pudding enriched to the point of being a custard, so the oven must be gentle enough not to curdle the eggs.
- The hinge: bake low and slowWith six eggs to a pint of milk and a teacupful of cream, this is a custard carrying bread rather than the reverse. Bake at 325F, ideally in a roasting tin of hot water reaching halfway up the cups, until just set with a slight wobble at the centre, roughly 30-40 minutes. Higher heat will make the puddings weep and go grainy.
- A penny loafA small white loaf of the period; its weight varied with grain prices, so the yield of grated crumb can only be estimated — somewhere in the region of 4 to 6 oz, roughly 2 to 3 cups of fresh soft breadcrumbs. Stale white bread, crusts removed and pulsed in a processor, is the modern equivalent; dried packaged crumbs will absorb differently and are too coarse.
- Imperial pintA British pint is 20 fl oz, so 2 1/2 US cups of milk. The teacupful of cream is about 5 to 6 fl oz.
- TeacupsUse 6 oz ramekins or ovenproof cups, well buttered. The mixture as written fills about eight. Old teacups are often not ovenproof and can crack in a water bath.
- Orange-flower waterStill sold, but modern bottles vary enormously in strength. Start with half a teaspoon in the whole batch and taste the raw mixture; too much turns the pudding soapy.
- Orange or lemon candyCandied peel, not confectionery. Two ounces, chopped small, is a fair match for the quarter pound of currants offered as the alternative.
- Pudding-sauceThe book assumes a sweet sauce poured over at table — most commonly melted butter beaten with sugar and a little wine or brandy, served warm. Any brandy or vanilla custard sauce serves the same purpose.
- SugarNo quantity is given. About 3 oz (a scant half cup) suits this volume of milk and eggs; more if the puddings are to be eaten without sauce.
Bread puddings of this kind sit at the point where thrift shades into luxury. The frame is the oldest of English kitchen economies — stale bread revived in warm milk — but by the time this recipe was written the bread has almost disappeared beneath six eggs, cream, butter, brandy and orange-flower water, and the whole thing has been decanted into individual cups for a genteel table. Orange-flower water was a standard flavouring in English baking from the seventeenth century onward, valued as vanilla later would be, and its steady retreat through the nineteenth century is one of the clearer markers of changing taste. Baking in cups rather than one large dish points to service as a dessert course, each diner receiving a portion turned out or eaten from the cup, flooded with sauce.