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A Frozen Plum Pudding
A frozen plum pudding as a rich dessert, suitable to the season, it will always find an appreciative following. Boil together one cupful of sugar and one cupful of water until the syrup begins to thread, beat the yolks of five eggs until light colored and thick, and stir into the cooked syrup little by little, returning to the fire to cook until quite thick. Remove and beat until cool. Meanwhile have ready one pint cream whipped and chilled, one-half pound candied fruit, one cupful of ground or chopped almonds, one-half cupful seeded raisins, one cupful of preserved pineapple, and one level tablespoonful of gelatine soaked in two tablespoonfuls of milk and water. When the gelatine is soaked and the syrup cooled put them together and beat until thick. Fold the cream in and add raisins and almonds; freeze. When ready to pack put in the fruit in alternate layers. If a sauce is desired serve whipped cream flavored with wine.
This is a bombe-style frozen dessert: a cooked egg-yolk mousse lightened with whipped cream, studded with fruit and nuts, churned and then packed into a mould. Nothing here is a boiled pudding.
- The hinge: cook the yolk base properlyThe hot syrup is beaten into the yolks and then returned to the heat until quite thick — this is a pâte à bombe, and it is what makes the pudding smooth rather than icy. Work over a double boiler and take it to 165–170F, stirring constantly; scrambled yolks cannot be rescued.
- "Until the syrup begins to thread"Thread stage is usually given as 230-235F on a candy thermometer, the point at which syrup dripped from a spoon pulls a fine thread. With equal volumes of sugar and water there is a good deal of water to drive off, so allow several minutes at a steady boil and judge by the thread, not the clock.
- GelatineOne level tablespoon is about a scant packet and a half of modern powdered gelatine — plenty for this quantity. Soaked in only two tablespoons of liquid it will set to a firm sponge, so warm it gently until clear and fluid before beating it in; the recipe itself has you combine it with the syrup once that has cooled.
- Candied fruit and preserved pineappleHalf a pound of mixed candied peel and cherries, and a cup of pineapple in heavy syrup. Drain the pineapple well and pat it dry, and chop everything small — large wet pieces freeze into hard nuggets that fight the spoon.
- "Freeze" means churnThe original assumes a hand-crank freezer packed with ice and rock salt. Use an ice-cream machine and churn until it holds a soft mound, or, without one, freeze in a shallow pan and beat it thoroughly three or four times at half-hour intervals.
- "When ready to pack"Packing meant turning the churned mixture into a mould and burying it in ice and salt to harden. Spoon it into a chilled bowl or pudding mould in layers, scattering the candied fruit between them, cover the surface with parchment, and freeze hard for at least six hours. Unmould by dipping the mould briefly in warm water.
- Serving temperatureA gelatine-set frozen pudding sets very firm. Move it to the refrigerator 20–30 minutes before serving so it slices cleanly and the flavour comes back.
- YieldA generous quantity, on the order of two litres of finished mixture, giving 10 to 12 servings. The sauce is simply whipped cream flavoured with wine, as the recipe says — a sherry or Madeira suits it.
Frozen plum pudding belongs to the fashion for iced puddings — rich frozen creams packed into moulds, served at Christmas and New Year in place of the steamed suet pudding they were named after. The technique is French: a bombe base of yolks cooked with boiling sugar syrup, folded with whipped cream, a method generally traced to the professional confectioners of nineteenth-century Paris and closely related to the chestnut-and-fruit Nesselrode pudding that dominated fashionable dessert menus of the period. The gelatine is a domestic touch, insurance for a cook working with a hand-crank freezer and ice-house ice rather than a mechanical cabinet.