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Iced Plum Pudding
Boil together half a pint of cream with the thinly-shredded rind of half a lemon and a small piece of citron. Place in a basin the yolks of four eggs with four ounces of caster-sugar and beat well, then pour in the boiling cream a little at a time; stand the basin in a bain-marie and stir continually until it begins to thicken, then take it out and mix in a teacupful of very dark caramel. When nearly cool, turn it into a freezing-mould and leave it there until it has about the stiffness of snow. Then blanch and chop an ounce of sweet almonds or pistachio nuts, shred one ounce of candied orange-peel and candied pineapples fine and chop one ounce each of candied cherries and sultanas; place all of these in a basin, pour half a wineglassful of brandy and a similar amount of curacoa and soak for an hour or two. Whisk half a pint of cream and one white of egg to a stiff froth, add the fruit mixture and whipped cream to the frozen mixture and let it remain in the freezer a short time longer. Then pack it in a mould, close tightly and bury it in ice. Make a sauce as follows: Rub the yellow rinds of one orange and one lemon with two or three lumps of sugar, place in a basin and squeeze in the juice of the fruit; add one and a half wineglassfuls of clarified syrup and a wineglassful each of wine and brandy. Work in the freezer until about half frozen, then turn the pudding onto a fancy dish, pile the frozen sauce around it, and serve.
An 1890s hotel dessert: a bombe of caramel custard ice cream studded with liqueur-soaked candied fruit, served with a half-frozen citrus-and-brandy sauce spooned around it. The technique is straightforward, but the measurements and the freezing method both need translating.
- The hinge: the custard must not boilStirred over a bain-marie, the yolk mixture thickens to coat a spoon at about 180F and scrambles not far above that. Pull it off the heat the moment it thickens, and strain it before it goes anywhere near the freezer, since the lemon rind and citron have to come out anyway.
- MeasuresHalf a pint is one cup (this is US measure in Oscar's book). A wineglassful is about 2 fl oz, so half a wineglass each of brandy and curaçao is about two tablespoons apiece. A teacupful was anywhere from about 4 to 6 fl oz, which is a great deal of caramel — taste as you add it and stop when the custard is as dark and bitter as you want.
- Caster sugar and caramelCaster sugar is superfine; ordinary granulated dissolves fine in a hot custard. "Very dark caramel" means sugar cooked well past amber to the edge of burnt, then let down with a little water — it is there for bitterness and colour, not sweetness.
- CuracoaCuraçao, the orange liqueur. Cointreau or Grand Marnier are the usual modern stand-ins, though neither is quite the same thing. Note that alcohol depresses the freezing point: the quantities here are small enough not to matter, but adding more will keep the pudding slack.
- Freezing mould and "the stiffness of snow"The original means a metal freezing pot or mould packed in a bucket of ice and rock salt and worked by hand. Churn the custard in an ice-cream machine until it is thick but still soft — the consistency of loose snow — then fold in the fruit and the whipped cream and egg white, pack it into a mould or loaf tin, cover tightly and harden in the freezer for at least four hours.
- The raw egg whiteThe whipped white is folded in cold and never cooked. If you are serving anyone pregnant, elderly or immune-compromised, use pasteurised egg white, or leave it out and rely on the whipped cream alone for lightness.
- Clarified syrupA sugar syrup boiled and skimmed; historically clarified with egg white to lift impurities out of less refined sugar, and often heavier than 1:1. Modern sugar needs no clarifying, and a plain 1:1 simple syrup will serve the sauce.
- The sauceRubbing sugar lumps over the zest is an efficient way to extract the oils; a fine grater does the same job. Half-frozen and stirred, it is essentially a citrus granita, so it wants working with a fork every twenty minutes or so if you make it in a tray rather than a machine.
- Unmoulding and yieldDip the mould in warm water for a few seconds and turn it out onto a chilled dish, then heap the icy sauce around the base. The quantities give something over a quart, serving six to eight.
Iced puddings were a set piece of the grand hotel dessert repertoire in the 1890s, and this one is a Christmas plum pudding recast entirely in cream and ice — the same dried fruit, candied peel, almonds and brandy, but frozen in a mould instead of steamed in a cloth. The "plum" is the older English usage meaning raisins rather than any actual plum, a survival from a time when the word covered dried fruit generally. Oscar Tschirky, the Waldorf's maître d'hôtel, published his cook book in 1896, and its dessert chapters lean heavily on the French pastry and glacier trade then dominating New York's luxury kitchens: a bombe of caramel custard, an interior garnish of macerated fruit, and a soft-frozen sauce piled around the base.