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Chestnut Pudding
Two ounces raw beef marrow, half ounce remnants cakes or bread crumbs, half ounce butter, one ounce fine sugar, two whole raw eggs, three tablespoons crushed candied marrons (chestnuts), one tablespoon corn flour, two tablespoons picked dried currants and one good tablespoon Swiss kirschwasser. Pound the marrons to a paste in a mortar, then pass through a sieve into a bowl. Add the butter, briskly stir for six minutes; add the sugar and eggs, one by one; rapidly stir again for five minutes, or until of a creamy consistency. Then add all the other ingredients; thoroughly mix for one minute. Lightly butter six individual pudding moulds. Fill them up with the preparation. Place the moulds in a pastry tin, pour hot water into the tin to half the height of the moulds. Set the tin in a hot oven to steam for twenty minutes. Remove from the oven, unmould on a hot dish and serve with a pineapple sauce separately.
A small steamed custard-pudding of the Edwardian hotel kitchen, built on beef marrow rather than cream. Everything hinges on getting the marrow and butter light before the eggs go in.
- Beef marrowTwo ounces is the soft interior of a couple of split marrow bones, about a quarter cup. Warm it just to room temperature so it creams rather than shatters; if it is chilled hard it will stay in lumps and the pudding will be greasy in patches. A butcher will split the bones on request.
- Candied marronsThese are marrons glaces or whole chestnuts in heavy syrup, sold in jars around the holidays. Three tablespoons crushed is roughly three or four nuts. Drained vacuum-packed chestnuts are not a substitute without added sugar, since the candying is carrying much of the sweetness.
- Corn flourHere that means cornstarch, what British cooks still call cornflour, not the finely milled maize flour sold as corn flour in America. The tablespoon helps stabilise the eggs against curdling in the bain-marie.
- KirschwasserClear cherry brandy, unsweetened and dry. Any kirsch will do; cherry liqueurs such as maraschino or cherry heering are sweetened and will throw the balance.
- Oven and water bathA "hot oven" in this period is usually reckoned somewhere around 400 to 450F, too fierce for a custard even in water. Bake at 325 to 350F. Pour the water in hot and do not let it come to a boil around the moulds, or the puddings will honeycomb.
- TimingTwenty minutes suits shallow dariole moulds. Standard 4-ounce ramekins will want 25 to 35 minutes; the centres should be set with only a faint wobble. Let them stand five minutes before unmoulding or they will slump.
- Beating timesSix minutes on the marrow and butter, then five more with the sugar and eggs, are hand-whisk times. A stand mixer will get there in two and three minutes respectively. Add the eggs one at a time as directed, otherwise the mixture breaks.
- Yield and the sauceSix small puddings, one per person as a plated dessert. No pineapple sauce is given here; the usual form is crushed pineapple and its syrup thickened lightly with arrowroot or cornstarch and sharpened with lemon, served warm alongside.
Beef marrow in a sweet pudding is a survival from medieval and early modern English cookery, where marrow bound mincemeat, marrow puddings and sweet tarts long before butter took over the job; by 1900 it was old-fashioned, though it may well have lingered in professional kitchens, which would in any case have had marrow bones on hand for stock. The candied chestnuts point elsewhere: marrons glaces are generally traced to the chestnut-growing districts of Piedmont and the Ardeche, and by the late nineteenth century they were an expensive imported luxury on American hotel menus. Kirschwasser from Switzerland and a pineapple sauce alongside make the point plainly enough about the kind of book this is, one that gathered dishes from the grand restaurant repertoire and set them out as if every household had a pastry tin of individual moulds and a mortar deep enough to pound chestnuts to a paste.