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General Satisfaction
Some strawberry or raspberry preserves 6 lady fingers 1/2 pint (I cup) milk I oz. (2 tablespoonfuls) butter 1 tablespoonful flour I lemon 1 egg 3 whites of eggs Grated nutmeg to taste 3 tablespoonfuls sugar Puff pastry Line a fireproof pudding dish with the pastry.
Put a layer of preserves at the bottom, then a layer of the lady fingers, then a layer of the following mixture. Blend the butter and flour in a saucepan over the fire, add the milk, and the grated rind of the lemon, stir and cook until the mixture thickens. When cold, stir in the yolk of the egg, and add the nutmeg and the sugar.
Bake in a moderate oven until ready.
Beat up the whites of the eggs to a stiff froth, place them on the top of the pudding, sprinkle over with sugar and bake for three minutes.
A layered pastry-lined pudding in the Queen of Puddings family, written with the compression typical of its period: quantities are given, but doneness is left to the cook. Two things need attention before you start — the pastry base and the meringue timing.
- The hinge: blind-bake the pastryRaw puff pastry under wet preserves and a milk custard will steam rather than puff and comes out pale and sodden. Line the dish, chill it, then bake blind at 400F for 15-20 minutes until set and lightly coloured before any filling goes in.
- Half a pint is one cupThe recipe helpfully glosses it. Likewise 1 oz butter is 2 tablespoons, which with 1 tablespoon flour makes a fairly loose roux — expect a pourable custard, not a paste.
- Moderate oven350F. The custard layer needs roughly 25-35 minutes to set to a gentle wobble; "until ready" means the centre no longer sloshes when the dish is nudged.
- Count the eggsThe recipe lists one whole egg plus three extra whites. Only the yolk of the whole egg is called for in the custard; the final instruction says simply to beat 'the whites of the eggs,' which may mean the three listed whites or all four including the one left from the whole egg. Either reading works.
- The lemonOnly the grated rind is used. The juice is not called for anywhere, so buy one lemon and expect to have the flesh left over — a splash of the juice in the preserves layer is a reasonable use for it.
- Three minutes will not cook the meringueThree or four whites piled on a pudding need 12-15 minutes at 325-350F to set through and colour, or a few minutes under a hot broiler if you want the tips dark. Three minutes leaves the interior wet and it will weep as it stands.
- Lady fingersSavoiardi, the dry Italian kind, not the soft sponge-cake sort. They are meant to absorb the custard; soft ones dissolve into mush.
- Cool the panada before the yolkThe instruction to add the yolk when cold is not optional — stirred into hot thickened milk it will scramble in threads.
- YieldThe recipe specifies neither dish size nor servings; quantities of this size suit a dish of roughly a quart. Best warm, within an hour or two of baking, while the meringue is still crisp on top.
This is a thrift pudding dressed for company: sponge fingers, a spoonful of jam, a cupful of milk thickened with flour and butter, and egg whites whipped up to make the whole thing look like more than it is. The pattern — preserves at the bottom, sponge and custard above, meringue on top — is the same one that gives England its Queen of Puddings, and the same logic that produces trifle and cabinet pudding: sweet baked goods past their best are rescued by custard rather than thrown out. Lady fingers are the dry finger biscuits sold now as savoiardi.