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Priceless Pudding
933. Add to the yolks and whites of five eggs their weight in sugar, flour, and butter; first beating the butter to a cream, then adding the sugar, the eggs, and the flour, one after the other; lastly, a good handful of raisins, and the rind of one lemon; beat all together, and boil it in a mould seven hours: serve with wine sauce in a boat.
A boiled pound cake in all but name: equal weights of egg, sugar, flour and butter, steamed in a mould rather than baked. The measuring is done on the scales, not in cups.
- Weighing by eggsThe recipe asks for the weight of the yolks and whites, i.e. the shelled egg. Five eggs will give you somewhere in the region of 9-12 oz (250-350 g) depending on their size, and you need that same weight each of sugar, flour and butter. Weigh your own eggs and match that figure rather than trusting a round number.
- FlourPlain flour is meant; the pudding rises on creamed butter and beaten egg alone. Self-raising flour risks over-rising and a slumped, coarse crumb when turned out.
- The hinge: keep the batter emulsifiedCream the butter and sugar thoroughly, then add the eggs a little at a time, beating between additions. If the mixture curdles, a spoonful of the weighed flour will bring it back — a split batter steams heavy and greasy.
- Boil in a mouldA buttered basin or fluted mould, covered with pleated greaseproof and foil and tied down. The original directs boiling, the mould immersed in boiling water; the gentler modern equivalent is to stand it in a pan of simmering water coming halfway up the sides. Either way, top up with boiling water as it evaporates so the pan never runs dry.
- Seven hours is far too longSeven hours is far more than modern practice -- That timing belongs to a dark, heavily fruited pudding. A plain batter like this is generally reckoned done in a few hours rather than seven, depending on the depth of the mould; test with a skewer, which should come out clean. Extra time past that only dries the crumb and darkens the outside.
- A good handful of raisinsReckon on 4 to 5 oz (about 125 g). Toss them in a little of the weighed flour so they stay suspended rather than sinking to what will become the top of the turned-out pudding.
- Lemon rindGrate it finely, taking no white pith, and rub it into the sugar before creaming — that draws out the oil and carries the flavour through the whole pudding.
- Wine saucePeriod wine sauces are generally butter, sugar and a sweet wine such as sherry or Madeira warmed together, sometimes thickened with flour or an egg yolk, and sent to table in a sauceboat as the recipe directs. If egg goes in, do not let it boil.
"Pound" puddings of this kind are common in nineteenth-century English cookery books, and the method — weigh the eggs, then match their weight in butter, sugar and flour — suited kitchens where eggs varied widely in size. The same batter baked in a tin is a pound cake; boiled in a cloth or a mould it becomes a pudding. Steaming in a covered basin gradually displaced the boiling cloth over the course of the century, and a wine sauce sent up separately in a boat, as here, is a usual dressing for a plain sweet pudding.