No. 3113

Pudding with Burnt Almonds—Souffled

Pouding Souffle aux Pralines

Sift six ounces of rice flour in a saucepan; dissolve it with a pint of boiling milk and thicken the preparation over the fire, stirring vigorously with a wooden spoon; when it detaches from the side of the saucepan take it off and add to it one ounce of butter, four ounces of burnt almonds ground to a dust and passed through a sieve, a pinch of salt, six ounces of sugar, eight egg-yolks, two tablespoonfuls of whipped cream, and finally six very stiffly whipped egg-whites. Butter and sugar a dome-shaped cylindrical mold, fill it up in layers, alternating the preparation with slices of Savoy biscuit or lady fingers soaked in maraschino and quarters of candied apricots well washed in hot water. When the mold is full set it in a bain-marie and let the water come to a boil, then finish cooking for forty minutes in a slow oven. As soon as the pudding is unmolded on a dish cover it with apricot sauce made with almond milk (No. 4) and maraschino, serving more of it in a bowl. For this sauce see light pudding with almond milk (No. 3104).

← No. 3112 Pudding with Almonds-Light Hot Entremets — Puddings, Fritters & Soufflés No. 3114 Pudding with Hazel-Nuts—Souffled →

For the Modern Kitchen

A rice-flour panada enriched with yolks and lightened with whites, layered with liqueur-soaked sponge and candied fruit, then baked in a water bath. Despite the name it behaves like a steamed pudding rather than a soufflé, which is why it can be unmolded at all.

The hinge: cook the panada until it pulls away cleanThe rice flour and milk must be stirred hard over the heat until the mass leaves the sides of the pan in one lump. Underdone, it stays gluey and the finished pudding will not hold its dome when turned out.
Oven and water bathRanhofer gives no temperature; a "slow oven" is generally read as somewhere in the 275-325F range. Bring the bain-marie water to a boil on the stove first, as directed, then hold it at a bare simmer for the 40 minutes; a hard boil curdles the egg and pocks the sides.
MeasuresRanhofer worked in weight: 6 oz rice flour is roughly 1 1/4 cups, 6 oz sugar about 7/8 cup, 1 oz butter 2 tablespoons. The pint of milk is presumably a US pint, 16 fl oz.
"Pralines" means burnt almondsNot the Louisiana pecan candy and not praline paste. These are almonds cooked in caramelized sugar, cooled hard, then ground fine and sieved; the sieving matters because ungrieved caramel shards will not soften in the batter.
Savoy biscuitBiscuit de Savoie is a light, dry sponge. Commercial ladyfingers or savoiardi are the direct substitute; Ranhofer names them himself as an alternative. The recipe says soaked in maraschino, though a brief dip will keep the layers from collapsing into the batter.
Candied apricotsWashing in hot water removes the heavy sugar glaze so the fruit does not weep syrup into the pudding. Pat dry before layering. Good candied apricot is scarce; well-drained apricots in syrup, blotted, are the nearest common stand-in.
The moldA dome-shaped cylindrical mold is a charlotte or pudding mold; Ranhofer gives no capacity, so judge by the volume of batter and layers. Butter it, then coat with granulated sugar, which helps it release.
Yield and serviceThe recipe gives no yield; the quantities suggest eight or so. Unmold and sauce it immediately, as such puddings settle as they cool.

A Little History

This is No. 3113 from Charles Ranhofer's The Epicurean (1894), the enormous record of his cooking at Delmonico's in New York, where the puddings and souffl umbered variations differing by a single nut or liqueur "praline" here, hazelnut in the next entry, plain almond in the one before. Praline in French usage means an almond cooked in caramelized sugar, and the name is traditionally traced to the household of the 17th-century French marshal du Plessis-Praslin, whose cook is said to have made them; the word only later attached itself to the soft pecan sweets of New Orleans. The layering with liqueur-soaked sponge and candied fruit is a hallmark of the grand-restaurant repertoire of the period, when a hot entremets was expected to arrive molded, sauced, and passed with more sauce in a bowl alongside.