Historical Food Fortnightly: Challenge #7- Adelaide's Pudding

The Challenge: The Best Thing Since Sliced Bread. Create a food item that reflects historical food improvements. Showcase a new discovery in food preparation, a different way of using food, or a different way of serving it.

For this challenge I chose patent flour, for which you can find an article I wrote here.

From What I Know by Elizabeth Nicholson, 1856.

The original recipe is vague in a few points. I looked through other baked pudding recipes of the era to gauge a cook time and temperature. I used pippin apples since they are a period variety. The recipe did not call for a specific type of sugar so I chose brown, this being my personal favorite for baking. I sprinkled my apples with cinnamon prior to baking and served the pudding warm with homemade whipped cream.



 
My updated recipe:

Fill each pared and cored apple with 1 tablespoon butter, 1 teaspoon sugar, and 1/8 teaspoon nutmeg. Place apples into a greased baking dish.

Make batter of 1 egg, 1 cup self raising flour, and 1 cup milk. 

Pour around apples and bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes. Knife should come out clean when inserted.

Serve quickly from oven, as the pudding will shrink as it cools.

The cost of this dish was nothing since I already had all the ingredients present.

Other than the modern convenience of baking in the oven, this dish was made with all period available ingredients and manner.

The dish was a success in my book and a hit with those who shared it.