No. 3102

Peach Pudding a la Cleveland

Pouding de Peches a la Cleveland

Cut twenty sound peaches in four pieces; lay them in a vessel, sprinkle over with a handful of powdered sugar and let macerate for half an hour, tossing them about at frequent intervals. Line a dome-shaped mold wider than its height with a very thin suet pudding paste (No. 2322); fill the inside with the quartered peaches, placing them in layers and bestrewing brown sugar between each one. Cover the fruits with a round flat of the paste and fasten it solidly to the sides. Close the mold with its own lid and wrap it up in a cloth, then plunge it into boiling water and let cook for an hour and a half, having it remain at a boiling degree during the whole time. Just when ready to serve remove the mold, unwrap and invert the pudding on a dish and cover it over with a Madeira sauce with peaches, serving some of it separately. For the sauce have six to eight very ripe peaches; remove the stones, crush the fruit and adding a few spoonfuls of sugar and two gills of water let cook for a few moments. Strain this sauce through a fine wire sieve and add to it a few tablespoonfuls of maraschino.

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For the Modern Kitchen

A boiled suet-crust pudding of the English type, dressed up for Delmonico's dining room. The crust is the whole game: it must be rolled thin, sealed tight, and kept at a rolling boil the entire time or water gets in and the paste turns to paste.

Keep the water boilingA steamed suet crust sets only if the heat never drops. Have a kettle of boiling water alongside and top up the pot as it evaporates, always with boiling water, never cold. Ranhofer says to plunge the wrapped mold into boiling water, which implies full immersion.
The moldA 2-quart pudding basin with a clip lid is a workable modern stand-in for Ranhofer's covered dome mold, though his was probably larger. Without a lid, cover with a pleated round of parchment and foil tied under the rim with string, then wrap in a cloth as directed; the pleat allows for expansion.
Suet paste, No. 2322The cross-referenced paste is a flour-and-shredded-beef-suet paste with salt and cold water; check the proportions at No. 2322 rather than taking them on trust here. Packaged shredded suet (beef or vegetarian) works; failing that, butter frozen and grated on the coarse side of a box grater gives a similar short, flaky crumb. Handle it cold and quickly.
GillsTwo gills of water for the sauce is one cup.
The sauce has no Madeira in itRanhofer calls it a Madeira sauce but lists only peaches, sugar, water and maraschino. Either the wine was assumed from the name or the line was dropped; a few tablespoons of Madeira added with the maraschino is consistent with the title. Say so rather than pretending the original is complete.
Twenty peaches is a lotTwenty medium peaches quartered comes to roughly 4 to 6 lb of fruit, more than a 2-quart basin will hold, though Ranhofer's mold was likely bigger. Scaling to a 2-quart mold, expect to use 10 to 12 for the pudding, plus the six to eight ripe ones the sauce needs separately.
MacerationHalf an hour with sugar draws out juice, which is what you want for flavor but not inside a sealed crust. Drain the quarters before layering and reduce the drained syrup into the sauce.
Yield and turning outServes 8 to 10. Let the pudding stand five minutes off the heat before inverting, or the hot crust may slump; serve immediately, as a boiled suet pudding stiffens as it cools.

A Little History

The Epicurean (1894) is Charles Ranhofer's account of thirty-odd years as chef at Delmonico's in New York, and its habit of attaching personal names to dishes reflects a restaurant that cooked for named guests. Dishes styled a la Cleveland in the period have sometimes been read as nods to Grover Cleveland, who was president during the book's composition, though Ranhofer himself does not explain the dedication. The dish underneath the French title is thoroughly English: a boiled suet-crust pudding, the same construction as a jam roll or an apple dumpling, which reached American kitchens through British cookery and was well established here long before Delmonico's opened. What Ranhofer adds is the restaurant finish with brown sugar rather than a single mass of fruit, and a strained fresh-peach sauce spiked with maraschino, the bitter cherry liqueur from the Dalmatian coast that appears throughout his dessert chapters.