No. 3092

Pudding a la Benvenuto

Pouding a la Benvenuto

Cook five to six large pancakes and cut them up into inch-wide bands. Butter a dome-shaped cylindrical mold and line it with these bands, one overlapping the other. Put seven ounces of flour in a saucepan with one pint of boiling milk and thicken it on the fire to obtain a smooth paste; remove it at once and add to it two ounces of butter, a pinch of salt, four ounces of sugar, two ounces of grated cocoanut laid on a paper-covered baking sheet and slightly roasted in the oven, the peel of one lemon and eight raw egg-yolks; return it to the fire, stirring continuously, and as soon as the preparation attains consistency incorporate into it slowly the well-beaten whites of five eggs. With this fill up the mold, alternating it with layers of pancake parings, first covered with apple jelly (No. 3668) and then rolled up. Set the mold into a saucepan with boiling water reaching to half its height and place it on the range; when the water boils, finish cooking in a slow oven for forty-five minutes. As soon as this is accomplished take out the pudding, let it stand for five minutes, then unmold it on a dish and serve at once with a sauce-boat of orange syrup thickened with arrowroot and flavored with maraschino.

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For the Modern Kitchen

This is a steamed pudding built on a flour-and-milk panade enriched with yolks and lightened with whites — closer to a soufflé pudding than to an English boiled pudding. It is a two-stage assembly, and the timing of the two stages matters more than anything else in the method.

The hinge: keep the water below a boilRanhofer says to bring the bain-marie to a boil on the range and then finish in a slow oven; he gives no temperature. Once the mold is in the oven the water should stay at a bare tremble; a rolling boil drives the egg custard past setting into a curdled, weeping mass and blows the pancake lining loose from the sides.
Make the pancakes first, and thinFive or six large crêpes, not American griddle cakes — a thin unsweetened crêpe batter, cooked pale. Cut them into strips about an inch wide for the lining and keep the trimmings, which the recipe calls "parings" and later spreads with jelly and rolls into little spirals to layer through the filling.
The panadeSeven ounces of flour (roughly 1 1/2 to 1 3/4 cups) stirred into a pint of boiling milk gives a very stiff paste, like a heavy pate a choux base. The recipe has you thicken it smooth on the fire and remove it at once, before the butter, sugar and yolks go in, because lumps will not disperse later.
Eight yolks, five whitesThe counts are as printed: eight raw yolks go into the paste, and the well-beaten whites of only five eggs are incorporated afterwards. The recipe returns the mixture to the fire, stirring continuously, and adds the whites as soon as it attains consistency; work carefully at that stage so the whites are not scrambled.
CoconutTwo ounces of grated coconut, dried on paper and lightly toasted, means unsweetened fresh or desiccated coconut. Sweetened flaked coconut will scorch on the sheet and push the sugar well past what the recipe intends.
Lemon peelTake the zest only, with no white pith. Grated zest folds in cleanly; if you pare it in strips, mince it fine or the pudding will have bitter pockets.
The moldA dome-shaped cylindrical mold; a charlotte mold or plain pudding basin is the nearest common substitute, though the recipe gives no capacity. Butter it heavily so the pancake lining releases. Ranhofer says to fill it up, alternating the mixture with the jelly-rolled pancake parings.
Standing and unmoldingThe five-minute rest is not optional; it lets the pudding contract slightly from the sides. Turn it out onto a warmed dish and serve immediately, as it settles as it cools.
Sauce and yieldThe recipe specifies only orange syrup thickened with arrowroot and flavored with maraschino, with no quantities: strained orange juice and sugar brought to a simmer, slackly thickened with an arrowroot slurry, the maraschino added off the heat. No yield is given.

A Little History

The Epicurean (1894) is Charles Ranhofer's record of some thirty years as chef at Delmonico's in New York, and its dessert chapters run to dozens of numbered puddings, many of them named for patrons, performers, cities or historical figures in the fashion of grand-restaurant menu writing. Benvenuto may be intended for Benvenuto Cellini, the Florentine goldsmith and sculptor, though no connection to him is documented and the naming was decorative, a way of giving a dish an identity on a printed carte. The construction itself is thoroughly French: a pouding in this tradition is a bound, molded, oven-steamed entremets, and the flour-and-milk panade lightened with beaten whites is the same base that supports Ranhofer's other hot puddings, varied here by the pancake lining, the toasted coconut and the maraschino syrup.