The Grosvenor Pudding

Name: The Grosvenor Pudding
Ingredients: 0.5 pound butter; 0.5 pound white sugar; 5 eggs; 0.5 pound flour; 0.25 pound currants; 2 ounces candied orange and lemon peel; lemon essence; butter

Source: Anonymous, 1846

History

The Grosvenor Pudding is a baked pudding recorded in The Jewish Manual (London, 1846), which is regarded as the first Jewish cookbook published in England. The book was issued anonymously — its title page credits only "a Lady" — and is traditionally attributed to Lady Judith Montefiore, though there is no conclusive proof of authorship; the identity behind "the Lady" was unknown at publication and the attribution rests on circumstantial reasoning.

In the book the recipe appears among the sweet dishes and puddings (indexed as no. 149), near a citron pudding and other second-course dishes, and is given with no headnote, no commentary, and no account of its origin. The reader is simply directed to beat half a pound of butter with the same quantity of white sugar "until it is like cream," then beat in five eggs with half a pound of flour, a quarter pound of currants, two ounces of candied orange and lemon peel cut thin, and a few drops of lemon essence, and — once well mixed and beaten — to butter a pudding tin, pour in the mixture, and "bake in a moderately quick oven".

Beyond that recipe text, the historical record consulted here does not document where the name "Grosvenor" came from, who devised or ate this pudding, or any social, class, or status significance attached to it. No food-history source describes the dish as a marker of wealth or status, and none establishes a place-to-place lineage for it. Those claims cannot be supported from the sources opened and are omitted.

Ingredients

0.5 pound butter
0.5 pound white sugar
5 eggs
0.5 pound flour
0.25 pound currants
2 ounces candied orange and lemon peel
lemon essence
butter

Instructions

Beat the butter and white sugar together until the mixture resembles cream. Beat the eggs and add them to the butter and sugar mixture. Fold in the flour, currants, candied orange and lemon peel, and lemon essence, mixing and beating well until all ingredients are thoroughly combined. Butter a pudding tin and pour in the mixture. Bake in a moderately quick oven until set.