Almond Pudding
Cook together in an agate saucepan one and one-half cupfuls of sugar and one-half cupful of water; bring slowly to the boil; as soon as boiling, put aside until lukewarm. Rub one-quarter of a pound of almond paste to a smooth batter, with one cupful of cream and the yolks of five eggs add the cooled syrup. Cook in the double boiler until creamy, stirring constantly. Pour into a bowl, beating until it is cold. Add one teaspoonful vanilla and one cupful of dry sponge cake fine crumbs; whip one pint of cream to a stiff froth, stir lightly into the first mixture. Pack in ice and salt for three hours.
This is a still-frozen almond cream — a custard base lightened with whipped cream and set in a salt-and-ice pack rather than churned. Everything hinges on the temperature of the syrup when it meets the yolks.
- Lukewarm means lukewarmThe recipe has the syrup stand until lukewarm before it meets the almond, cream and yolk mixture; adding it hot risks curdling the yolks.
- Agate saucepanAgate (agateware, graniteware) is enamelled steel — a non-reactive pan. Any stainless or enamelled pan works; avoid bare aluminium or unlined copper, which discolour the pale custard.
- Cook the custard to a number"Until creamy" in a double boiler means a custard thick enough to coat the spoon. The book gives no temperature; take it off the heat while it still coats the spoon rather than waiting for it to thicken further, as overheated yolks will granulate.
- Almond paste, not marzipanA quarter pound is 4 oz. Use almond paste (roughly equal almonds and sugar); marzipan carries much more sugar and will push the already sweet base over the edge. Work it smooth with a little of the cream first, then add the rest, or you will be picking out lumps.
- Sponge cake crumbsOne cup of dry, finely crumbled sponge cake — stale or oven-dried, not fresh, which turns pasty. The crumbs give body to a mixture that is never churned.
- Cream measuresOne cupful in the custard and a pint whipped to stiff froth for folding in. "Cream" here is heavy or whipping cream; anything lighter will not hold the froth.
- Packing in ice and saltThe mixture is frozen still, not stirred. Traditionally it goes into a covered mould buried in a bucket of crushed ice with rock salt at roughly three or four parts ice to one part salt, for three hours. In a modern freezer, use a covered loaf pan or metal mould and allow four to six hours; the texture will be dense and semifreddo-like either way.
- Yield and servingRoughly a quart and a half to two quarts — eight to ten servings. Unmould onto a chilled plate or serve in scoops; it softens quickly.
Frozen almond creams of this kind are often traced to the French biscuit glac\with almond paste and whipped cream, set in a mould without churning. In the period, domestic freezing still meant ice cut in winter, stored in an icehouse, then broken up and mixed with rock salt in a wooden bucket to drop the temperature below the freezing point of water; a still-frozen pudding was the version a cook could make without a hand-cranked freezer, and it was often set in a fancy mould for that reason. Almond paste, imported or ground at home from blanched sweet almonds, was one of the standard flavourings of the period's fashionable desserts, sitting alongside vanilla and rosewater. The call for an agate saucepan is a small period detail: enamelled steel was the hygienic, easily scoured alternative to tinned copper in turn-of-the-century kitchens.