Rich Bread and Butter Pudding

Instructions

1. Give a good flavour of lemon-rind and bitter almonds, or of cinnamon, if preferred, to a pint of new milk, and when it has simmered a sufficient time for this, strain and mix it with a quarter of a pint of rich cream.
2. Sweeten it with four ounces of sugar in lumps, and stir it while still hot to five well-beaten eggs.
3. Throw in a few grains of salt, and move the mixture briskly with a spoon as a glass of brandy is added to it.
4. Have ready in a thickly-buttered dish three layers of thin bread and butter cut from a half-quartern loaf, with four ounces of currants, and one and a half of finely shred candied peel, strewed between and over them.
5. Pour the eggs and milk on them by degrees, letting the bread absorb one portion before another is added: it should soak for a couple of hours before the pudding is taken to the oven, which should be a moderate one. Half an hour will bake it.
6. It is very good when made with new milk only; and some persons use no more than a pint of liquid in all, but part of the whites of the eggs may then be omitted. Cream may be substituted for the entire quantity of milk at pleasure.
7. Proportions: New milk, 1 pint; rind of small lemon, and 6 bitter almonds bruised (or 1/2 drachm of cinnamon): simmered 10 to 20 minutes. Cream, 1/4 pint; sugar, 4 oz.; eggs, 6; brandy, 1 wineglassful. Bread and butter, 3 layers; currants, 4 oz.; candied orange or lemon-rind, 1-1/2 oz.: to stand 2 hours, and to be baked 30 minutes in a moderate oven.