Her Majesty’s Pudding

Instructions

1. Infuse in a pint of new milk half a pod of vanilla, cut into short lengths, and bruised; simmer them gently together for twenty minutes.
2. Strain the milk through muslin to half a pint of cream.
3. Put these again on the fire in a clean saucepan, with three ounces of fine sugar, and pour them when they boil to the beaten yolks of eight very fresh eggs.
4. Stir the mixture often until it is nearly or quite cold, and boil it as gently as possible for an hour in a well-buttered mould or basin that will just hold it.
5. Let it stand for five minutes at least before it is turned out.
6. Dish it carefully, strew and garnish it thickly with branches of preserved barberries, or send it to table with a rich syrup of fresh fruit, or with clear fruit-jelly, melted. A compote (see Sweet Dishes, page 153) of currants, cherries, or plums is greatly relished with this pudding.
7. The flavouring may be varied with bitter almonds, lemon-rind, noyau, or aught else which may be better liked than the vanilla.
8. Proportions: New milk, 1 pint; vanilla, 1/2 pod: 20 minutes. Cream, 1/2 pint; sugar, 3 oz.; yolks of eggs, 8: 1 hour.
9. Note: Unless the eggs be stirred briskly as the boiling milk is gradually poured to them, they will be likely to curdle. A buttered paper should always be put over the basin before the cloth is tied on, for all custard puddings.