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Victoria Pudding
940. Pour a pint of boiling milk upon the crumb of a twopenny French roll; cover it till nearly cold, then add a few sweet and bitter almonds well pounded, a little sifted sugar, a table-spoonful of brandy, and three yolks of eggs well beaten. Butter the basin or mould, lay sweetmeats, citron, or raisins about it in any pattern you like. Pour the pudding in quite cold, boil it well, and serve with wine sauce.
A boiled bread-and-milk custard pudding of the mid-Victorian type, decorated inside the mould with dried fruit. It cannot be made as printed, because one of its flavourings is a controlled poison.
- Bitter almondsBitter almonds contain amygdalin, which releases hydrogen cyanide when the nut is pounded and wetted — exactly the treatment this recipe specifies. They are not sold for eating in the UK, US or EU. The recipe calls only for "a few", but the toxic dose is low, particularly for children, and boiling in a covered mould cannot be relied on to drive the cyanide off. Use a modern recipe if you want a pudding of this kind.
- Twopenny French rollA soft white roll, of which only the crumb was used, the crust being discarded. The exact size is not recorded here. Any plain enriched white roll or brioche crumb stands in.
- The soakingA pint of boiling milk (20 fl oz imperial, a little under 2 1/2 US cups) poured over the crumb and left covered until nearly cold both softens the bread and scalds the milk. The recipe's "nearly cold" matters: the mixture must have cooled before the yolks go in, or they curdle.
- "Pour the pudding in quite cold"The reason is presumably practical: warm batter would soften the buttered mould and loosen the fruit pattern before the pudding sets.
- Boiling a puddingThe mould is covered with buttered paper and a cloth, then set in simmering — not galloping — water reaching two-thirds up the sides, topped up as it evaporates. The recipe gives no time; a pudding of this size will want something over an hour. Hard boiling makes the custard weep.
- Sweetmeats and citron"Sweetmeats" here means candied fruit rather than confectionery. Candied citron peel is still sold at Christmas; candied cherries and angelica were common alternatives for patterning a mould.
- Wine sauceA period wine sauce is butter, sugar and sherry or Madeira thickened over hot water, sometimes with an egg yolk. It may be poured over the turned-out pudding or handed separately.
- YieldAbout a pint and a half of mixture, serving six.