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Lemon Pudding
Stir into yolks of six eggs one cup sugar, half a cup water, and the grated yellow rind and juice of two lemons; soften in warm water six crackers or some slices of cake, lay in bottom of a bakingdish, pour custard over them, bake till firm; beat whites of eggs to a froth, add six table-spoons sugar, and beat well; when custard is done, pour frosting over it, return to the oven and brown. Eat either warm or cold. - Mrs. Walter Mitchell, Gallipolis.
A lemon custard poured over softened crackers or stale cake and finished with a meringue — essentially a lemon version of the cracker-crust puddings that fill this chapter. The original gives no oven temperature or timing, so the notes below fill in the gaps.
- The hinge: gentle heatThis is a baked egg custard, and it curdles if pushed hard. Bake at 325–350F until the center is just barely set with a slight wobble, roughly 35–45 minutes in a 1½-quart dish. A pan of hot water around the dish is not called for but is cheap insurance.
- "Six crackers"Nineteenth-century soda or butter crackers were generally larger and drier than a modern saltine — figure roughly a cup of coarse crumbs, or four to five slices of stale plain cake or pound cake. Unsalted crackers or plain water biscuits come closest.
- Softening the baseDip briefly in warm water and let the excess drain. Waterlogged crackers give a pasty layer; the point is only to keep them from drinking up all the custard.
- Lemon quantityTwo lemons yields roughly 5–6 tablespoons juice and about 2 teaspoons zest. Grate the zest before juicing, and take only the yellow — the white pith is bitter.
- The meringueSix tablespoons sugar to six whites is a very soft, lightly sweetened froth by modern standards; beat to soft peaks, adding the sugar gradually. Spread it so it touches the edge of the dish all around, or it will shrink back and weep.
- Browning"Return to the oven and brown" means 5–8 minutes at 350F, or a couple of minutes under a broiler with the door watched. A meringue on a warm custard sets faster and weeps less than one on a cold one.
- YieldServes six to eight. If it is firm enough to cut, use a thin knife wiped between slices; the meringue tears otherwise.
- ServingThe recipe allows warm or cold. Cold sets the custard firmer and makes cleaner portions; warm is looser and closer to a spoon pudding. Refrigerate leftovers — this is an egg custard.
Cracker puddings of this type were a standing solution to two household problems at once: a surplus of eggs and a supply of stale bread, cake or crackers that no one wanted to throw out. The structure — a softened starch base, a rich custard poured over, a meringue browned on top — resembles that of the better-known lemon meringue pie and of the English "queen of puddings," itself a nineteenth-century name, and it appears in American community cookbooks throughout the second half of the nineteenth century. Lemons themselves were a bought luxury in inland Ohio, which is why the recipe wrings both the juice and the zest out of only two of them. The attribution to Mrs. Walter Mitchell of Gallipolis is typical of The Dixie Cook Book, which was largely a reworking of Buckeye Cookery and carried over its Ohio attributions, printed largely as submitted, oven guesswork and all.