No. 3098

Franklyn Pudding

Pouding a la Franklyn

Put half a pound of butter into a vessel, beat it to a cream, and add to it seven egg-yolks, one at a time. When the preparation has become frothy put with it gradually six ounces of peeled and dried almonds that have been pounded and rubbed through a sieve, six ounces of sugar, six ounces of bread-crumbs, and eight ounces of candied fruits, such as candied cherries cut in two, pineapple and orange peel cut in dice, and finally six well-beaten egg-whites. Pour this preparation into a cylindrical timbale mold (Fig. 150), and place this in a sautoir with water to half its height; set it on the fire to come to a boil, then push it into a slack oven. At the expiration of forty-five minutes remove the pudding from the oven, let it rest for a few moments, then unmold it on a dish; cover it with orgeat sauce, and serve with a bowlful of the same.

The orgeat sauce is made by cooking four ounces of sugar to "small crack" (No. 171), then adding a gill of almond milk (No. 4), and boiling once. Thicken the sauce with a spoonful of fecula diluted with a little water and half a gill of rich cream.

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For the Modern Kitchen

A steamed-baked almond pudding of the Delmonico school: rich, sweet, and held together by nothing but egg and crumb. Two things decide whether it works — a genuinely slack oven and a light hand with the whites.

Slack ovenA slack oven is 275-300F. The pudding is cooked in a water bath and must not be pushed higher; above about 325F the custard sets too fast at the edges and the pudding weeps or cracks when unmolded. Bring the bain-marie to a boil on the stovetop first, as written, so the oven only has to hold it there.
The mold and the bathA cylindrical timbale mold is a straight-sided, tall pudding mold; Ranhofer gives no capacity, and this quantity of batter needs a roomy one. A sautoir is a wide, straight-sided sauté pan; any roasting pan will do, filled with boiling water to half the mold's height. Butter and crumb the mold well — there is a lot of sugar and candied fruit in this batter and it sticks.
Folding the whitesSix beaten whites are the only lift the pudding has, and the base — creamed butter, yolks, ground almonds, crumbs and heavy candied fruit — is stiff. Slacken it with a third of the whites first, then fold in the rest. Overworking here gives a dense, greasy pudding rather than a light one.
Almonds"Peeled and dried almonds" means blanched sweet almonds, dried out so they grind to powder rather than paste. Store-bought almond flour is an acceptable substitute for the 6 oz; if you grind your own, pulse with a spoonful of the sugar to keep it from turning oily.
Weights, not cupsRanhofer works in weight throughout: 8 oz butter, 6 oz each ground almonds, sugar and breadcrumbs, 8 oz candied fruit. Use a scale — the crumb weight in particular varies enormously by cup depending on how dry and fine the crumbs are. The recipe specifies only "bread-crumbs"; dry, fine crumbs are the likelier reading.
Doneness and restingForty-five minutes is what Ranhofer gives; a smaller or wider mold will be faster. It is done when the center is set and a skewer comes out clean. The few minutes' rest is not optional — unmolded straight from the bath it will slump.
Small crack, and a gill"Small crack" (petit cassé) is roughly 270-290F on a candy thermometer; Ranhofer gives his own figure at No. 171. A gill is half a cup, so the sauce is 4 oz sugar cooked to that stage, then a half cup of almond milk, thickened with starch and a quarter cup of cream.
Fecula and almond milkFecula is starch — potato starch in Ranhofer's kitchen, and cornstarch works. His almond milk (No. 4) is sweet almonds pounded with water and strained; commercial carton almond milk is far thinner and much less almond, so a homemade version, or unsweetened almond milk reinforced with a little almond extract, gets closer.
YieldServes 8 to 10 as a dessert course. It is very rich, and the orgeat sauce is served both over and alongside, so keep the portions modest.

A Little History

This is No. 3098 in Charles Ranhofer's The Epicurean (1894), the vast record of his years as chef at Delmonico's in New York, where the book's puddings run for pages under names honoring patrons, actors, statesmen and — as here — presumably Benjamin Franklin, whose name attached itself to a great many nineteenth-century American dishes without any documented connection to him. The dish itself is straightforwardly French in construction: a pouding in the sense Carême used, a buttered egg-and-crumb batter steamed in a mold rather than boiled in a cloth as an English pudding would be. Its sauce takes the name orgeat, from the Occitan for barley, a sweet almond emulsion that had by this date lost its original barley entirely and survived mainly as an almond syrup — the same lineage as the orgeat still poured into tiki drinks. The candied cherries, pineapple and orange peel mark it as a luxury: imported preserved fruit at a time when that meant a confectioner's shop, not a supermarket aisle.