No. 3104

Plumery Pudding

Pouding a la Plumery

Pound four ounces of raw beef marrow, pass it through a sieve and place it in a vessel; beat it up to a cream, adding five egg-yolks and two whole eggs, one at a time. When this preparation becomes creamy add to it four ounces of powdered almonds passed through a sieve, two ounces of cracker dust, three ounces of crushed macaroons, two ounces of bread-crumbs soaked in rum, two ounces of angelica and one ounce of orange peel, both washed in hot water and cut into quarter-inch squares. When all these ingredients have been properly mixed incorporate slowly into the whole four egg-whites beaten to a very stiff froth; pour this preparation into a cylindrical buttered and sugared mold and cook it in a bain-marie in a very slack oven. Just when prepared to serve unmold the pudding on a dish, cover it with apricot marmalade (No. 3675), and serve with a sauce-boat of apricot sauce prepared with almond milk.

Apricot Sauce with Almond Milk.—Have two gills of apricot pulp, four ounces of sugar and two gills of water placed in a saucepan; stand it on the fire and allow to cook for a few moments, then strain through a fine stramer and add one gill of almond milk (No. 4); return it to the saucepan and heat the sauce without boiling; just when prepared to serve add a tablespoonful of noyau liqueur.

← No. 3103 Plum Pudding, St. George Hot Entremets — Puddings, Fritters & Soufflés No. 3105 Rice Pudding a la Bagration →

For the Modern Kitchen

A marrow pudding in the old English manner, dressed up in French clothes for the Delmonico's dining room. The hinge is the oven: this is a custard-bound pudding steamed in a water bath, and any real heat will curdle the yolks and split the marrow out as fat.

"Very slack oven"The coolest setting, generally read as somewhere in the 250-300F range. The mold sits in a bain-marie of hot (not boiling) water reaching two-thirds up the sides. A 1-quart cylindrical mold is likely to need an hour and a half or so; it is done when the centre is set but still trembling.
GillsOne gill is half a cup. The sauce is therefore 1 cup apricot pulp, 1 cup water, 4 oz (about 1/2 cup plus 1 tbsp) sugar, and 1/2 cup almond milk.
Getting the marrowAsk a butcher for split canoe-cut beef marrow bones; you will need two or three large ones for four ounces of raw marrow. Scoop it out cold, pick out any bone splinters and blood spots, then push it through a fine sieve. It creams properly only at cool room temperature -- warm marrow separates, chilled marrow will not take the eggs.
Cracker dustFinely ground dry unsalted crackers or plain water biscuits. Unsalted matzo or saltines with the salt shaken off both work; the point is a neutral dry starch, not a flavour.
MacaroonsCrisp almond macaroons of the amaretti type, not the soft coconut kind. Crush them coarsely so they stay as flecks rather than dissolving into the batter.
Angelica and orange peelCandied angelica stem is now a specialty item, sold mainly through cake-decorating and European grocers; candied citron or a little more candied orange substitutes without harm. The hot-water wash removes the surface syrup so the pieces do not sink and weep.
Almonds and almond milkUse sweet almonds only, blanched and ground fine, and make the almond milk from the same. Nineteenth-century almond milk recipes sometimes called for a few bitter almonds for perfume; that is not a substitution to make at home.
Folding the whitesFour whites to a heavy marrow-and-nut base is not much lift, so fold in a third first to loosen the mixture, then the rest in two additions. Overworking here is what produces a dense, greasy pudding.
NoyauA kernel-flavoured liqueur, still sold as crème de noyaux. Amaretto is the nearest easy substitute. Add it off the heat -- the recipe warms the sauce but never boils it.
YieldSix to eight servings. It must be unmolded hot; left to cool in the mold it stiffens and tears coming out.

A Little History

The name is generally traced to Armand Plumerey, the chef who completed the fourth and fifth volumes of Carême's L'Art de la cuisine française au dix-neuvième siècle in the 1840s, and whose name attached itself to a handful of garnishes and puddings in the classical repertory. Charles Ranhofer, who ran the Delmonico's kitchens for over thirty years and published The Epicurean in 1894, inherited that repertory wholesale and reproduced it with the numbered cross-references of a working professional manual. The dish itself is older than its French label: beef marrow puddings, bound with eggs and studded with candied peel, macaroon crumbs and spirits, run through English cookery from the seventeenth century onward, marrow being prized as a rich, almost sweet fat before butter was cheap and reliable year-round. What the version associated with Plumerey's name adds is the restaurant finish -- a cylindrical mold, an apricot glaze, and a separate sauce boat -- turning a homely pudding into a plated entremets for the end of a long menu.