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Flame Pudding
Warm four ounces of butter and beat it with four ounces of sugar to a creamy froth. Separate the yolks and whites of ten eggs; beat the yolks and add them to the beaten butter, then mix in smoothly two heaping tablespoonfuls of blanched and pounded almonds and one-fourth pound of sifted flour. Whisk the whites of the eggs to a stiff froth, stir them in lightly with the above mixture, and make the whole rather thick with grated stale sponge-cakes. Butter thickly a pudding dish, turn the mixture into it, tie a stout pudding-cloth over the top, place it in a saucepan of boiling water, and boil for an hour. When cooked turn the pudding onto a hot dish, fix a small glass in the center of it, which fill with brandy, allowing some to run over the sides, set light to it, and serve without any delay.
A steamed sponge pudding of the 1890s hotel repertoire, finished at the table in flame. Two things decide whether it succeeds: the whites must go in without being knocked down, and the water in the saucepan must never stop simmering or go dry.
- Weights in cupsFour ounces of butter is one stick (1/2 cup); four ounces of sugar is a generous 1/2 cup. One-fourth pound of sifted flour is about one cup, measured after sifting.
- The sponge-cake is the variableOscar gives no quantity, only "rather thick." Expect roughly 1 to 1 1/2 cups of grated stale sponge cake or ladyfingers, added a little at a time until the batter mounds on the spoon rather than pours. Add it after the whites, folding, not stirring.
- Ten eggs, and whyThere is no chemical leavening here at all. The whipped whites are the only lift, so whisk them to firm but not dry peaks and fold in three additions. Overbeaten whites break up in the folding and the pudding comes out dense.
- Pounded almondsTwo heaping tablespoons of blanched almonds ground fine, about 1 oz. Commercial almond flour works; almond meal with skins will speckle the crumb and taste more strongly.
- The pudding dish and clothUse a 1 1/2 to 2 quart pudding basin or metal mold, buttered heavily, filled no more than two-thirds. In place of the pudding cloth, cover with buttered parchment and foil, pleated to allow rise, and tie under the rim with string.
- Boiling means simmeringSet the covered mold on a rack in a deep pan with water reaching halfway up the sides, and keep it at a steady bare simmer for one hour. A hard rolling boil throws water over the cover; top up with boiling water from the kettle as needed.
- Testing and unmoldingA skewer into the center should come out clean and the pudding should feel springy. Rest five minutes before turning out, or the crumb tears.
- Flaming itWarm the brandy first in a small pan; cold spirit is hard to light. Pour from a measured cup at the table, never from the bottle, and light with a long match away from hair, sleeves and low-hanging shades.
- YieldOscar gives no yield; a pudding of this size will serve about eight. A hard sauce or thin custard is a common accompaniment, though Oscar leaves the pudding to the brandy alone.
Oscar Tschirky's Cook Book (1896) records the food of the old Waldorf on Fifth Avenue, and it carries a long chapter of boiled and steamed puddings. This one has the look of the German-Austrian type: creamed butter, many eggs, ground almonds and cake crumbs standing in for much of the flour, nearer a Biskuitpudding than a suet pudding, though the book gives it no such label. Flamed dishes were part of the dining-room theater of the period -- a pudding carried in alight, or a glass of burning brandy set in its center, made a show of itself -- as were crêpes Suzette and cherries jubilee, whose own origin stories are contested and roughly contemporary rather than later developments. Serving "without any delay" is practical instruction: the brandy burns out quickly, and a cooling steamed pudding stiffens fast.