Home › The Elegant Economist's Pudding › The Elegant Economist's Pudding (Fill a pie-dish with slices)
The Elegant Economist's Pudding (Fill a pie-dish with slices)
950. Fill a pie-dish with slices of cold plum-pudding, within about an inch of the top, fill the dish up with a cold custard made of two eggs, three tea-spoonfuls of sugar, and the same of flour; let it stand to soak for an hour before it is put in the oven, and bake it about the same time as a bread and butter pudding.
A use for the last of a Christmas pudding: slices packed into a dish and set in a thin baked custard. The recipe assumes you already know how a bread and butter pudding behaves, so the numbers below fill in what it leaves unsaid.
- The soaking hour is the pointCold boiled plum pudding is dense and dry, and an hour in the custard is what turns it back into something spoonable. Skip it and the custard bakes around hard lumps rather than into them.
- The custard is under-specifiedTwo eggs, three teaspoonfuls of sugar and three of flour are given, but no quantity of milk. Pie-dish sizes vary; for one of about 1.5 pints, roughly 3/4 to 1 pint (400-500 ml) of milk suits two eggs; less milk gives a firmer, more cake-like set.
- "Cold custard" here means uncooked"Cold custard" here probably means the raw, uncooked mixture rather than a stirred custard cooked on the stove. Whisk the eggs and sugar, blend the flour in smoothly to avoid lumps, then stir in the cold milk and pour it over the pudding.
- Oven and timeThe recipe gives no temperature, only the comparison with bread and butter pudding. In a modern oven, about 325-350F (160-175C) for 45 minutes to an hour suits it. It is done when the custard is just set at the centre and no longer wobbles as a liquid.
- A water bath helpsStanding the pie-dish in a roasting tin of hot water keeps the egg from curdling at the edges while the middle is still loose. Set custard reads about 175F (80C) internally.
- Plum puddingThis means the boiled suet-and-dried-fruit pudding of Christmas, not anything made with plums. Any dark steamed fruit pudding, bought or homemade, works; slice it about half an inch thick.
- YieldA 1.5-pint dish serves four to six, since the pudding itself is very rich. Serve warm, with cream or a spoonful of brandy butter melting on top.