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Maraschino Pudding
Dissolve three ounces of gelatine in one breakfast cupful of water; beat the yolks of ten eggs with one quart of milk, pour them into a lined saucepan, and stir them over a slow fire until they are thickened, but do not let it boil or the eggs will curdle; then stir in the dissolved gelatine, and when it is somewhat cooled add one wineglassful of Maraschino. Place the mixture in a mould and keep it in a cool place for an hour. When it is ready to serve, turn the pudding onto a dish, and pour over it some whipped cream.
A cooked custard set with gelatine and turned out of a mould — a Victorian Bavarian cream in all but name. Two things in the original need attention before it will work in a modern kitchen: the gelatine quantity and the missing sugar.
- The hinge: do not let the custard boilCook the yolk-and-milk mixture over low heat, stirring constantly, until it coats a spoon — about 175-180F. A few degrees past that and it scrambles, and no amount of straining will bring back the texture.
- Gelatine has been reformulatedGelatine is not what it was -- Three ounces by the standards of the period is not the same thing as three ounces of modern powdered gelatine; older gelatines varied in form and strength, and the recipe does not say which was meant. For roughly five cups of liquid, about 1 oz (four 1/4-oz envelopes) gives a pudding firm enough to unmould without turning rubbery. Soften it in cold water first, then dissolve it in hot water rather than boiling it.
- Old measuresA breakfast cupful is 8 to 10 fl oz — treat it as one cup. A wineglassful in American books of this period is about 2 fl oz, or 1/4 cup.
- No sugar is listedThe recipe as printed is unsweetened apart from the liqueur, which is not enough for a quart of milk and ten yolks. Beat about 3/4 cup of sugar into the yolks before adding the milk.
- Add the liqueur coolWait until the custard is warm rather than hot before stirring in the Maraschino; alcohol and aroma both flash off from a hot mixture, and Maraschino is all aroma.
- An hour will not set itChill at least 4 hours, preferably overnight. To unmould, dip the mould briefly in hot water and invert onto a cold platter.
- Strain before mouldingPass the finished mixture through a fine sieve into the mould. It catches any set threads of gelatine and the inevitable specks of overcooked yolk.
- YieldAbout 1.5 quarts of pudding — eight to ten servings. Whipped cream, as directed, should be unsweetened or barely sweetened.
Maraschino is a clear cherry liqueur distilled from Marasca cherries, stones and all, historically associated with Zadar on the Dalmatian coast, where Luxardo and its rivals had been shipping it since the early nineteenth century; the bitter-almond note comes from the crushed pits. It reached American hotel kitchens as a luxury flavouring long before the sweet dyed cocktail cherry borrowed its name, and a reader who substitutes the syrup from a jar of those cherries will get nothing like the intended dish. The pudding itself is a moulded custard dessert in Waldorf dress, set with gelatine, moulded, turned out and sauced with cream — a standard set-piece dessert of the period, expensive in the one line that mattered on the menu, the imported liqueur. Oscar Tschirky, the Waldorf's celebrated maitre d'hotel, published his enormous compilation in 1896.