Home › Cold Desserts › Mocha Pudding
Mocha Pudding
Put one quart of milk into a double boiler, drop in a muslin bag containing one-half cup of pulverized coffee and let it infuse for fifteen minutes, keeping milk at the scalding point. Beat together until smooth six eggs, two tablespoons of flour and eight tablespoons of sugar. Remove the bag of coffee from the milk, pour the latter over the egg mixture and return to the double boiler to cook until smooth and thick. When cold, pile in little paper cases which can be purchased from any confectioner, pack them in a pail or tin box with closely fitted cover and bury in ice and salt for two hours. Serve garnished with whipped cream.
This is a coffee custard, chilled hard rather than churned, so the texture depends entirely on how far you cook the eggs and how cold you get it. Two details in the original — the muslin bag and the ice-and-salt pail — have easy modern substitutes.
- The hinge: do not let the custard boilSix eggs in a quart of milk will set at around 175-180F; past about 185F the proteins tighten and the custard curdles. Stir constantly over barely simmering water and pull it when it coats the back of a spoon and holds a line drawn through it.
- Temper the milk inThe original just says to "pour the latter over the egg mixture." To avoid scrambling the eggs, pour the scalded milk in a thin stream while whisking: add a cup first, whisk smooth, then the rest.
- Pulverized coffee and the muslin bagPulverized means finely ground, near espresso fineness. A half cup of grounds is roughly 1.5 oz; tie it in a doubled square of cheesecloth or use a large paper filter, and keep the milk at the scalding point (about 180F) rather than simmering, or the infusion turns bitter.
- Scalding pointMilk is scalded when it steams and shows a ring of small bubbles at the edge, around 180-185F. Fifteen minutes at that temperature will extract plenty of coffee flavor, and a double boiler makes scorching unlikely.
- Ice and salt, translatedBurying a covered tin in ice and rock salt for two hours brings the contents to freezing or below, so expect a firm, part-frozen custard rather than a soft pudding. A home freezer for two to three hours is the practical substitute; cover the surface with plastic wrap to keep ice crystals off.
- Paper casesThe "little paper cases" sold by confectioners were stiff pleated cups, essentially what we now call soufflé cups or large cupcake liners. Use foil or paper baking cups set in a muffin tin so they hold shape while freezing.
- Flour, not cornstarchTwo tablespoons of flour is there as insurance against curdling and gives a slightly cloudy set. Cook the custard a full minute after it thickens so the raw-flour taste cooks out.
- YieldAbout 5 cups of custard — eight to ten servings in standard paper cups. Whip the cream unsweetened; the custard already carries eight tablespoons of sugar.
"Mocha" as a flavor name comes from al-Mokha, the Yemeni Red Sea port that shipped much of Europe's coffee in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries; by the time this book was compiled the word had drifted loose from its origin and meant simply coffee-flavored, in cakes, icings, and cold desserts like this one. The recipe belongs to a family of "iced" custards packed in a covered tin and buried in ice and salt -- a still-freezing method older than the hand-crank freezer, and with no paddle the result sets dense rather than light. The instruction to buy paper cases from a confectioner points to a reader with a confectioner's shop within reach, serving individual portions rather than turning out one large mold.