Batter Pudding or Pan Cakes

These are not your Grandma's pancakes! Great-Grammy says, "Sounds to me like a meat accompaniment, a bit like Yorkshire pudding without the beef fat." The mystery box recipe for Yorkshire Pudding is below.

Most of my cookbooks expect steamed puddings to be boiled in molds, but The Scots Kitchen says to use a pudding cloth—a large piece of tightly woven canvas which can be wrapped around the entire pudding without a mold. Aunt Averil uses a compromise: an oven-proof bowl with a heavy cloth tied over the top.

• 1 quart fresh milk
• 6 eggs, beaten to a froth
• 6 tablespoons flour [1/2 cup]
• Pinch salt

Mix well together. Put into a greased bowl. Have bowl level full. Tie cloth over top and boil 1 hour. [That is, place the bowl or pudding mold on a rack in a kettle over 2 inches of boiling water, so the steam can cook the pudding]

Why Pan Cakes? It turns out the same batter can be baked, fried or steamed. Averil's recipe is a steamed pudding. Author Joyce Maynard uses a similar batter, with less milk and fewer eggs, poured into a square casserole dish and baked to make Puffed Oven Pancakes.

Yorkshire Pudding

Peggy Hutchinson, The Daily Telegraph, May 13, 1937

For a pudding for three people, the following quantities will be required:

• three heaped tablespoons flour
• 1 egg
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• milk to mix
• 1 tablespoon water

Mix flour, salt, water, and milk into a thin batter. Let this stand one hour or more. then break in the egg and whisk briskly for 5 minutes. Have ready a little boiling fat in the bottom of a dripping tin or individual muffin tins. Pour in the batter and cook 10 to 15 minutes in a hot [450°F] oven.

Serve with gravy as a first course, before the meat and vegetables.

Important points for success are:

1. Batter must be mixed a while to allow flour to swell.
2. Air must be beaten in immediately before placing batter in the oven, as baking powder must not be used.
3. Fat must be boiling when the batter is poured into it, and the oven hot. Pudding should rise four inches and be delicately browned.