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Sherry Sponge Pudding
Butter a pie-dish and put into it two sponge-cakes and one wineglassful of sherry. Boil one-half pint of milk with three or four lumps of sugar, then beat two eggs up with it; when the wine is absorbed, pour the custard over the cakes and bake it in a slow oven. When set, turn the pudding out onto a dish, and serve.
A small baked custard poured over sherry-soaked sponge, closer to an English tipsy cake than to bread pudding. The whole thing hinges on gentle heat and full absorption of the wine before the custard goes in.
- WineglassfulIn American cookbooks of this period a wineglass is about 2 fl oz (¼ cup). That is a generous amount of sherry for two small cakes, which is why the recipe tells you to wait until it has soaked in.
- Sponge-cakesProbably not layers from a cake tin but small individual sponges of the kind sold ready-made; sponge fingers or a slice or two of plain g"index":2,"verdict":"hedge"}
- Lumps of sugarA cube of loaf sugar was often reckoned at roughly a teaspoon, though sizes varied, so three or four lumps is somewhere around a tablespoon for a half pint of milk. That is a lightly sweetened custard, with the cake and sherry presumably carrying the rest.
- Half a pint of milk, two eggsOne cup of milk to two whole eggs is a standard set-custard ratio and will hold when turned out, provided it is not overbaked. Whole milk, not skim.
- Beat the eggs up with itThe milk has been boiled, so pour it into the beaten eggs in a thin stream while whisking rather than the reverse, or you will get sweet scrambled egg. Strain the mixture before it goes over the cake.
- A slow ovenIn modern terms roughly 300-325 degrees F; the recipe itself gives no temperature. Baked much hotter, custard tends to curdle and weep. Setting the pie-dish in a pan of hot water gives a more even set, though the recipe does not say so.
- When setExpect 35 to 45 minutes in a shallow dish. The edges should be firm and the centre still trembling; carry-over heat finishes it. Let it stand ten minutes before turning out, or it will collapse.
- YieldTwo to three servings as written. Cream, or a spoonful of the same sherry, would not be out of place, though the recipe calls for nothing beyond turning it out.
Sherry poured over sponge cake and set with custard is the skeleton of English trifle, and puddings of this family tipsy cake, tipsy parson, tipsy squire travelled to American tables through the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries; the origin is often linked to the thrifty habit of reviving stale cake with wine, though that account is traditional rather than documented. Oscar Tschirky's 1896 Cook Book set plain dishes of this kind alongside the elaborate hotel cookery the Waldorf was famous for, and a pudding using two sponge cakes and two eggs belongs to the modest end of that range. Sherry was widely used as a cooking wine in American kitchens of the period, appearing in everything from turtle soup to this.