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Rice Snow Balls
Boil a pint of rice in two quarts of water, with a teaspoon of salt, until quite soft, then put it in small cups, having them quite full; when perfectly cold, turn them into a dish, take the yolks of three eggs, one pint of milk, one teaspoon corn starch; flavour with lemon, and cook as you do soft custard ; turn over the rice half an hour previous to eating it. This is a nice dessert in hot weather. Sweet meats are a good accompaniment.
A molded rice pudding with a pouring custard, and one of the easier Victorian desserts to bring off — provided the custard never boils. Two details need translating: the rice quantity is by volume, and no sugar is specified anywhere.
- The hinge: soft custardCook the yolk, milk and cornstarch mixture over low heat or a bain-marie, stirring constantly, until it coats a spoon — around 170-175F. Past that the yolks curdle and no amount of beating will bring it back smooth.
- A pint of riceThis is dry volume, roughly 2 cups or 400 g, boiled in 2 quarts of water. That is far more water than the absorption method uses; the rice is meant to be boiled loose and soft, almost to a porridge, so the grains cling when packed.
- Sugar is assumedNeither the rice nor the custard is sweetened in the text; the only sweet element mentioned is the sweetmeats served alongside, though the recipe does not say they are meant to supply the sweetness. Most cooks today will want 1/3 to 1/2 cup of sugar in the custard.
- Flavour with lemonIn this period that would usually mean either a few drops of lemon essence or a strip of peel steeped in the hot milk and lifted out. Peel infused in the milk gives the cleaner result; zest left in will speckle the custard.
- Molding the cupsPack the hot rice into small teacups or ramekins while it is still sticky and press it down firmly — the phrase "quite full" matters, since air pockets make the domes collapse. Chill several hours until cold and set before turning out.
- Assemble aheadThe custard is poured over half an hour before serving. The recipe gives no reason for the interval.
- SweetmeatsIn this period the word most often means preserved or candied fruit -- quince or damson preserve, brandied cherries, candied peel -- though it could also cover sugar confections. Any tart fruit preserve serves the same purpose.
- YieldAbout six to eight molds, depending on cup size, with roughly a pint of custard to pour over them.
Molded rice desserts were a staple of the second half of the nineteenth century because they solved several problems at once: rice was cheap and stored indefinitely, the dish required no oven in hot weather, and it could be made the morning before and left in the cellar or icebox. The name describes the finished look rather than any ingredient — small white domes turned out of teacups, a shape that appears across period cookbooks under names like snowballs, rice moulds and rice pyramids, sometimes with an apple or a spoonful of jam hidden in the centre. The Home Cook Book belongs to the compiled-and-contributed tradition, in which recipes were gathered from local housekeepers and printed to raise money for a charitable cause; that origin explains the telegraphic style here, with sugar unmentioned and "cook as you do soft custard" standing in for a full method, since every contributor assumed her reader already knew.