With fresh farm ingredients available in abundance, fall is the time to try heirloom recipes. This one, for “Pumpkin Pudding,” is from the 1840 cookbook Directions for Cookery in Its Various Branches, by Miss Leslie. Miss Leslie was apparently well-known; this was the eleventh edition of her cookbook.
Sometimes, it’s the idiosyncrasies of old recipes that are the most fun. Note, below, the absence of a cooking temperature and the inclusion of an undetermined variety of wine.
Pumpkin Pudding
Take a pint of pumpkin that has been stewed soft, and pressed through a colander. Melt in half a pint of warm milk, a quarter of a pound of butter, and the same quantity of sugar, stirring them well together.
If you can conveniently procure a pint of rich cream it will be better than the milk and butter.
Beat eight eggs very light, and add them gradually to the other ingredients, alternately with the pumpkin. Then stir in a wine glass of rose water and two glasses of wine mixed together; a very large teaspoonful of powdered mace and cinnamon mixed, and a grated nutmeg.
Having stirred the whole very hard, put it into a buttered dish and bake it three quarters of an hour.
