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Marshmallow Pudding
For the marshmallow pudding weigh three eggs and take an equal weight each in sugar, butter and flour. Cream thoroughly the butter and sugar, add a dash of salt, a teaspoonful of vanilla or a tablespoonful of orange flower water; then, one at a time, the eggs. Beat well until the mixture is light and fine grained, adding the flour gradually. Last of all, stir in four ounces of marshmallows cut into bits, turn into a buttered mould and steam for an hour and a quarter.
A pound-cake batter built by weight rather than volume, steamed instead of baked. The marshmallows are the only unfamiliar element, and they behave differently now than they did in 1900.
- Weighing against the eggsThree eggs in the shell run about 6 oz (170 g), so take 6 oz each of sugar, butter and flour. Weigh your own eggs rather than assuming — period eggs were smaller and less uniform, and the whole point of the method is that the four weights match.
- No leavening at allThere is no baking powder or soda here. The rise comes entirely from air beaten into the butter and sugar and from the eggs, so cream them until genuinely pale and fluffy and add the eggs one at a time to keep the emulsion from splitting. The recipe has you keep beating as the flour goes in gradually.
- Marshmallows then and nowTurn-of-the-century marshmallows were softer, less stable confections, and some were still made with gum arabic or marshmallow-root paste alongside the newer gelatin ones. Modern gelatin-and-corn-syrup marshmallows will probably soften and spread under an hour of steam, leaving sticky voids and a wetter crumb. Chilling the cut pieces before folding them in may help them hold shape a little longer.
- Orange flower waterStill sold in Middle Eastern groceries and baking aisles. A tablespoon is assertive by modern palates; start with two teaspoons if you are unfamiliar with it. Vanilla extract at the stated teaspoon is a straight substitution.
- The mouldButter a 1½-quart pudding basin or steamer mould and fill it no more than two-thirds. Cover tightly with buttered foil or a pleated paper-and-cloth lid — the pleat gives the pudding room to rise without lifting the cover.
- Steaming setupStand the mould on a rack in a deep pot, add boiling water to come halfway up the sides, and keep it at a bare simmer. Top up with boiling water as it evaporates; letting the pot run dry in the last half hour is the usual failure.
- Doneness and turning outAfter an hour and a quarter a skewer should come out clean of batter, though it may pick up melted marshmallow. Let the pudding stand ten minutes before unmoulding or it will slump.
- Yield and sauceServes six to eight. The recipe supplies no sauce — a thin custard, a hard sauce, or a plain vanilla cream all suit it, and something loose is welcome against a batter this rich.
Marshmallow took its name from Althaea officinalis, the marsh mallow, whose mucilaginous root was whipped with sugar and egg white into the French pâte de guimauve. In time the root was largely replaced by gelatin and gum arabic, and marshmallows became a cheap manufactured sweet — which may be why they turn up here as an ingredient rather than something to be made. The pudding itself is older stock: an English steamed pudding on the equal-weights principle that also produces pound cake, adapted to a novelty confection the cook could simply buy.