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Macaroni Pudding (Boil a teacupful of macaroni)
862. Boil a teacupful of macaroni in a quart of milk till tender; then beat well two eggs, yolks and whites separately; stir all together, sugar and spice to the taste, and bake. 863. A Rich Macaroni Pudding.-A quarter of a pound of macaroni is to be boiled in a pint of milk for half an hour; then turn it into a dish, and mix with it three eggs, two table-spoonsful of loaf sugar, a little nutmeg, and a few pounded almonds or lemon-peel; butter the mould well, and boil or steam it one hour. Serve it up with wine sauce. 864. Very Rich Macaroni Pudding.-Boil a quarter of a pound of macaroni in a pint of milk, with some bitter almonds and cinnamon stick, till tender; then remove the flavourings, and stir in, while hot, a quarter of a pound of butter, a quarter of a pound of sifted sugar, and a pint and a half of cream; mix, and beat hard; and stir in gradually four well-beaten eggs; when it has cooled, add nutmeg and brandy, and bake it. Vermicelli and ground rice may be made in the same manner.
Three sweet macaroni puddings in ascending order of richness, from a milk-boiled custard to something closer to an almond cream. Note that no. 864 calls for bitter almonds and cannot be made as printed.
- Bitter almonds in no. 864Bitter almonds contain amygdalin, which releases hydrogen cyanide when the nut is crushed or steeped; a small handful is within the range that has caused poisoning, and they are not legally sold as food in the United States. Simmering them in milk and then lifting them out does not remove what has already leached into the milk. Use a current recipe if you want an almond-flavoured macaroni pudding.
- Macaroni of the periodMid-century macaroni came as long, thick, quill-like tubes, sold in bundles and broken to length before cooking. Modern elbow macaroni behaves similarly in milk but cooks faster; check for tenderness well before the half hour in no. 863.
- A teacupfulA teacup is usually reckoned at about a half-pint, so roughly a cup of dry macaroni for no. 862. With a quart of milk that gives a loose, soupy mixture before the eggs go in.
- Boiling pasta in milkMilk scorches on a dry pan bottom and the starch shed by the macaroni makes it worse. Use a heavy pan over low heat and stir often, or set the pan in a wider pan of simmering water.
- Bake at what heatNeither baked version gives a temperature. A custard of this kind wants 325-350F until just set and barely trembling at the centre, roughly 45 minutes to an hour for no. 862 in a buttered dish. A water bath prevents the egg from curdling at the edges.
- Loaf sugarLoaf sugar was refined sugar broken from a cone and pounded; ordinary granulated or caster sugar is the equivalent. Two tablespoons is modest for a pint of milk and three eggs.
- Boiled and steamed puddingsFor no. 863, butter a pudding basin, cover it with buttered paper or foil tied down, and keep the water at a steady simmer topped up from a kettle for the full hour. Rest it a few minutes before turning out or the custard tears.
- Wine sauceA wine sauce of the period is typically butter, sugar and sherry or madeira warmed together until smooth, sometimes thickened with a little flour or an egg yolk. Serve it hot and thin enough to pour.
- YieldNo. 862 will roughly fill a 1.5-quart dish and serve about six; no. 863 serves perhaps four or five.
The British Cookery Book (1859), edited by J. H. Walsh from contributed and older printed sources, catches macaroni at a point when it was still an imported ingredient in British cooking and appeared sugared and spiced about as readily as savoury. Sweet macaroni puddings sit in a long line of English milk-and-starch puddings alongside rice, sago, vermicelli and ground rice, and the closing line here — that vermicelli and ground rice may be treated the same way — suggests the ingredient was understood as interchangeable filler for a baked custard rather than as anything Italian.