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Lemon Pudding
Place in a saucepan three ounces fresh butter, four ounces sugar, three egg yolks, the grated peel of a sound lemon and its juice as well, set the pan on the range and with spatula sharply stir for five minutes. Remove from the fire, lay on a table and briskly whisk it for one minute. Beat up the whites of the eggs to a stiff froth and gradually add them to the preparation with a half teaspoon vanilla essence, mix well with a skimmer. Lightly butter and sugar six individual pudding moulds, then fill them up with the preparation, place them on a tin, pour hot water in the pan up to half their height, set in the oven for twenty-five minutes, remove, unmould on a hot dish, pour a sweet cream sauce over them and serve.
A small hot lemon-curd soufflé baked in a water bath, six to a batch. The whole thing hinges on not letting the yolk mixture get hot enough to scramble.
- The five minutes on the rangeThis is a curd, not a custard base to be boiled. Keep the heat low and the spatula moving, and pull the pan off well before it approaches a simmer; the mixture should thicken to a glossy sauce, no more. If your range runs hot, set the pan over barely simmering water instead.
- Weights in cupsThree ounces of butter is 6 tablespoons; four ounces of sugar is a generous half cup. The three eggs supply both yolks and whites, so nothing else is needed.
- Oven heatNo temperature is given, as was usual. A moderate oven, 350F, suits twenty-five minutes in a bain-marie; the puddings should be set at the edges and just firm in the centre.
- The water bath"Pour hot water in the pan" means already-hot water. Note the recipe's order: the water goes in before the tin is set in the oven, though pouring it once the tin is on the shelf is easier. Fill to half the height of the moulds, as directed.
- MouldsRamekins or dariole moulds of about 4 oz will take six portions of this quantity. Butter them and dust with sugar rather than flour, as directed, which gives the crust that helps them release.
- SkimmerThe recipe names a skimmer for mixing the whites in. A large rubber spatula does the same job in fewer strokes.
- UnmouldingLet them stand a minute or two out of the water, run a thin knife round, then invert. They will sink a little as they cool, which is normal for a mixture leavened only by egg white.
- Sweet cream sauceIn a book of this vintage this means a thin custard sauce, a crème anglaise, or sweetened cream lightly thickened. Serve it warm and pour at the table; the puddings collapse quickly.
- YieldSix small puddings, one per person as written, though they are light enough that two apiece is not excessive after a plain main course.
The International Cook Book belongs to the wave of turn-of-the-century American volumes that catalogued restaurant cookery, and the style of this recipe is that of a professional kitchen: weights in ounces, a spatula and a skimmer named as separate tools, and the assumption that the reader knows what a sweet cream sauce is without being told. The dish itself is a lemon curd lightened with beaten whites and baked in a water bath, a form the French called a pouding soufflé and the English kitchen knew as the hot lemon soufflé pudding. Lemon curd as a preparation is generally traced to English cookery of the earlier nineteenth century, where it was made for tarts and for spreading; folding whites into it and baking it in individual moulds suits restaurant service, giving each diner a portion that arrives at its peak rather than a large pudding that deflates on the way to the table.