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Kiss Pudding
Boil one quart sweet milk in custard-kettle, stir into it four heaping table-spoons sugar and four table-spoons corn starch, dissolved in a little cold water or milk, and added to the well-beaten and strained yolks of four eggs. Have the whites of eggs beaten to a stiff froth with tea-cup pulverized sugar and one tea-spoon essence of vanilla, spread on top of pudding, set in a quick oven, and brown; take out, sprinkle with grated cocoa-nut, set dish away in a cool place; serve cold after three or four hours. The sweet liquor which settles to the bottom in cooling, serves as a sauce. - Mrs. W E. Baxter.
A cornstarch custard under a browned meringue, of the sort every late-nineteenth-century book carried under some coy name. The technique is sound; only the vessels, the sugar and the oven language need translating.
- Custard-kettleThis is a double boiler. Set a heatproof bowl or the upper pan over simmering water so the milk never touches direct heat; cornstarch and egg yolk together will scorch and taste burnt if they do.
- QuantitiesOne quart is 4 cups of whole milk. Four heaping tablespoons sugar is roughly 1/3 cup; four tablespoons cornstarch is 1/4 cup, which gives a soft, spoonable set rather than one firm enough to slice.
- Pulverized sugarIn this period the term means finely ground sugar, closest to today's superfine or caster sugar. Modern confectioners' sugar contains cornstarch and will make a chalkier meringue, though it works. A period teacup is usually reckoned at somewhere between 1/2 and 3/4 cup.
- Order of operationsSlurry the cornstarch in cold milk, whisk it into the beaten yolks, then temper that mixture into the hot milk rather than dumping it in. Cook until it thickens visibly and loses any raw-starch taste, two to three minutes at a bare simmer, stirring constantly.
- Quick ovenRoughly 400 to 425F. At that heat the meringue needs only a few minutes to color, and it should be watched the whole time; the aim is browned peaks, not a dried-out shell.
- Cocoa-nutGrated fresh coconut was probably meant, but unsweetened desiccated coconut is the practical substitute. The recipe adds it after the dish leaves the oven, so sprinkle it on while the meringue is still hot enough for it to adhere.
- The sauceThe "sweet liquor" that settles at the bottom is most likely syrup drawn out of the sugared whites as the pudding cools. The recipe treats it as part of the dish rather than a fault, and a meringue whipped to firm, glossy peaks with the sugar fully dissolved will weep less.
- YieldRoughly six to eight servings. Serve cold, spooned so each portion gets meringue, custard and some of the syrup.
Puddings with flirtatious names ran through American community cookbooks of the 1870s and 80s: kiss pudding among them. "Kisses" in period usage meant small baked meringue drops, and the name here almost certainly comes from the sweetened, vanilla-scented egg-white topping rather than from anything romantic in the custard beneath. The dish belongs to the moment when cornstarch, sold commercially in the United States from the 1840s, gave home cooks a cheap and reliable thickener that needed far fewer eggs than a true baked custard: four yolks stretch across a full quart of milk, with the whites doing double duty on top so nothing is wasted. The Dixie Cook-Book printed such recipes over the names of the women who contributed them, which is why Mrs. W. E. Baxter's signature sits at the end.