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Albemarle Pudding
Partially warm four ounces of butter, and beat it until it becomes frothy, then mix in four ounces of sugar, and the grated rind of one lemon. Whip separately the whites and the yolks of three eggs, and mix all together, sifting in, a little at a time, three-quarters of a pound of flour, and continue beating the whole until it is quite smooth. Butter a pudding-basin and ornament it with raisins, cover the top with a sheet of buttered paper, and stand it in a saucepan, with boiling water to about three parts its height, and steam for an hour and a half; when thoroughly cooked, turn the pudding out of the mould onto a dish, and serve.
A plain English steamed sponge in the Victorian manner, built on creamed butter, eggs and lemon with no leavening beyond the beaten whites. Two things need attention before you start: the flour quantity and the fact that the batter as written contains no liquid at all.
- The flour is the problemThe flour looks wrong for the other quantities -- four ounces each of butter and sugar with three eggs will not easily carry three-quarters of a pound of flour (about 2 3/4 cups); as written you get a stiff paste, not a batter. Many comparable steamed puddings of the period use considerably less flour for this quantity of butter, sugar and egg, and often include milk. The figure may be a printer's error, or the cook may have been expected to loosen it from experience; either way, thin to a soft dropping consistency with milk before it goes in the basin.
- Partially warm the butterThis means softened to the point of being just workable, not melted. Melted butter will not hold air when beaten and the pudding will be dense.
- Whites and yolks separatelyThe whites are the only lift in the recipe. Beat them to soft peaks and fold them in last, after the flour, rather than mixing everything together and then beating it smooth as the text directs. "Continue beating until quite smooth" will knock out the air you just put in.
- Pudding-basinA 1 1/2-pint (about 850 ml) heatproof bowl, filled no more than two-thirds. Butter it well and press the raisins onto the buttered surface so they stay put when the batter goes in — they become the pattern on top once turned out.
- Buttered paper, and something over itButtered parchment is right, but add a layer of foil or a cloth tied under the rim. Uncovered or loosely covered, condensation drips in and the top turns to paste.
- SteamingBoiling water to three-quarters the height of the basin, lid on the saucepan, water kept at a bare simmer. Check every 30 minutes and top up with boiling water; a pan that runs dry in 90 minutes will scorch the basin and the pudding.
- Doneness and turning outA skewer in the centre should come out clean; 1 1/2 hours is right for the size given. Let it stand 5 to 10 minutes before inverting, or the sponge tears away from the raisins.
- Yield and servingSix modest servings. Puddings of this kind were commonly sent to table with a lemon sauce, a sweet wine sauce or plain cream — the pudding itself is barely sweet and wants one.
Albemarle pudding belongs to the long list of English steamed puddings named after titles and country houses — Cabinet, Nesselrode, Chancellor, Albert — a naming habit that tells you more about nineteenth-century dining-room fashion than about origins; the connection to the Albemarle title is traditional rather than documented, and no single kitchen can be credited with it. What is clear is the form: butter, sugar, egg and flour creamed together, scented with lemon rind, lined with raisins and steamed in a basin over water, a very common form of English pudding of the era. Oscar Tschirky, maître d'hôtel of the Waldorf, gathered hundreds of such staples into his 1896 Cook Book alongside the hotel's showpieces, and the plainness here is the point — a New York luxury hotel still served the English nursery repertoire to guests who expected it.