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Prairie Plum Pudding
Stew together a tea-cup raisins and half tea-cup citron; prepare dish with butter, put in layer of sponge-cake (any kind of cake will do, or Boston crackers, sliced and buttered may be used, or even stale Graham bread-crumbs), then a layer of fruit, and so on, with cake or bread for last layer; pour over it custard made of a quart of milk and yolks of four eggs, sweetened to taste; bake until on inserting a knife the milk has become water. Make a frosting of the whites of four eggs and four table-spoons pulverized sugar, spread on pudding, brown in oven, and serve with sauce made of one tea-cup white sugar, two-thirds pint water, one table-spoon butter, one tea-spoon corn-starch mixed smoothly with a little cold milk; let sugar and water boil, add the rest, and allow to boil a few moments, then add the white of one well-beaten egg with one tea-spoon vanilla essence. - Mrs. M. E. Godard.
A layered bread-and-butter custard pudding, finished with meringue and a cornstarch-thickened sauce. The custard is the whole dish, and it wants gentle heat.
- The doneness test, translated"Bake until on inserting a knife the milk has become water" describes a custard that has set enough for the blade to come out coated with clear liquid rather than milky. In practice: bake at 325F until the edges are firm and the center only just trembles, roughly 45 to 60 minutes for a quart of milk in a shallow dish. A water bath is worth the trouble; custard baked dry and hot curdles and weeps.
- Tea-cupA nineteenth-century tea-cup is smaller than a modern mug, generally reckoned at about 3/4 cup. So roughly 3/4 cup raisins and a scant 1/2 cup citron.
- CitronCandied citron peel, sold in blocks or diced with the holiday baking supplies. It is firmer and more bitter than candied orange; chop it small. Candied orange or lemon peel substitutes acceptably.
- Stew togetherSimmer the raisins and citron in a little water for five to ten minutes until plump, then drain. This keeps the dried fruit from pulling moisture out of the custard as it bakes.
- Boston crackersLarge, thick, plain crackers, common in New England households of the period; period descriptions vary, some calling them slightly sweet. Any unsalted plain cracker works; the point is a neutral starch that will soak up custard without dissolving.
- Four yolks to a quartThis is a lean custard by modern standards, held together partly by the cake or bread. Do not be tempted to bake it hotter to speed the set.
- The meringueFour whites to four tablespoons of powdered sugar makes a soft, foamy meringue rather than the stiff, sugar-heavy kind. Spread it to the very edges of the dish so it seals, and brown it briefly at 400F or under a broiler, watching it closely.
- The sauceOne tea-spoon cornstarch in two-thirds pint of liquid gives only the lightest body. The final egg white goes in off the heat and stays raw, so serve the sauce the day it is made and keep it out of reach of anyone who should avoid uncooked egg; whisking it in while the sauce is still near boiling and holding it a moment longer is a reasonable precaution.
- YieldThe recipe gives no yield; roughly eight servings from a 2-quart baking dish.
Puddings like this one exist because bread and cake went stale faster than households could eat them. The recipe's string of alternatives "any kind of cake will do, or Boston crackers, sliced and buttered may be used, or even stale Graham bread-crumbs" is the honest heart of it: the cook used what the pantry held. Graham bread, made with the coarse unsifted wheat meal promoted by the dietary reformer Sylvester Graham in the 1830s, was a common household loaf by the time this book appeared. "Prairie" here appears to be a regional badge rather than a technique, of a piece with The Dixie Cook Book's practice of collecting contributions under the names of the women who sent them in; Mrs. Godard's version is a queen-of-puddings variant distinguished chiefly by its citron and its cornstarch sauce.