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Cabinet Pudding
Lightly butter the interior of a one quart pudding mould. Arrange a small piece of white paper to cover the bottom of the mould. Cut out from a sandwich loaf of bread thirty round pieces one inch in diameter and one-third inch in thickness. Beat up in a bowl two raw egg yolks with a tablespoon powdered sugar and one gill cream or good milk. Steep the pieces of bread in the cream for ten minutes. Chop very fine six small slices of candied or canned pineapple and fifteen peeled pistaches. Mix them together, arrange a layer of the bread at the bottom of the mould, then a layer of pineapples, etc. Continue the same operation until all are used, seeing that the last is a layer of bread. Gradually fill the mould up to the height of the bread with a custard. Place in a saucepan and pour in boiling water up to half the height of the mould. Place in a moderate oven to bake for one hour. Remove, unmould, dress on a hot dish, and serve with a hot pineapple sauce.
A moulded bread-and-custard pudding built in layers, baked in a water bath. The original assumes you already have a custard mixture on hand and does not say how much, which is the one gap worth planning around.
- The custard is unmeasuredThe recipe calls for filling the mould "up to the height of the bread with a custard" without giving a quantity or formula. For a 1-quart mould, plan on roughly 2 cups of a plain baked custard — around 3 eggs and 2 tablespoons sugar to 2 cups milk or half milk half cream — and expect to have a little left over.
- A gillOne gill is half a cup, 4 fluid ounces. Here it is only the soaking liquid for the bread, beaten with the two yolks and sugar.
- PistachesPistachios. "Peeled" means blanched and the papery skins slipped off, which keeps the green colour visible in the slices; fifteen nuts is a very small amount, so chop them fine as directed.
- Moderate ovenRoughly 350F, though the term covers a range and the lower end suits a custard. The pudding sits in a saucepan with boiling water halfway up the mould; keep the water below a simmer so the custard sets smooth rather than curdling at the edges.
- The paper in the bottomUse a round of parchment, buttered, cut to fit. It is what lets the pudding turn out cleanly; peel it off after unmoulding.
- Doneness over the clockOne hour is a reasonable estimate for a quart mould, but judge by the custard: a knife slid into the centre should come out clean and the pudding should be barely wobbly. Let it stand 10 minutes before turning out or it will slump.
- Canned pineappleDrain it well and pat it dry. Excess syrup or juice thins the custard around it and can leave wet pockets; candied pineapple, the first option given, is drier and holds the layers better.
- YieldA quart mould serves four to six. The recipe does not say how to make the hot pineapple sauce; drained syrup, thickened slightly and warmed, is one reasonable reading.
Cabinet pudding is an English steamed or baked pudding of bread or sponge cake layered with dried or candied fruit and set with custard; it appears in British cookery books through the nineteenth century alongside its near-twins Chancellor's pudding and Newcastle pudding, and the name is generally traced to the notion of a dish fit for a cabinet dinner rather than to any particular minister. The pineapple and pistachio here replace the usual raisins and currants with tropical canned goods and imported nuts, the sort of thing a well-stocked professional larder could count on. The technique behind it is older and simpler than the pudding: bread, eggs and milk, cooked gently in a bain-marie so the custard sets without boiling.