A Whitepot is a traditional Elizabethan recipe for a classic baked rice pudding, most especially associated with the county of Devon made from rice and fruit baked in an egg and cream custard. The full recipe is presented here and I hope you enjoy this classic Elizabethan version of: A Whitepot.
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Original Recipe
Sauce for Roast Capon (from Gervase Markham The English Huswife, (London, 1615))
Take the best and sweetest cream, and boil it with good store of sugar, and cinnamon, and a little rose-water, then take it from the fire and put into it clean picked rice, but not so much as to make it thick, and let it steep therin till it be cold; then put in the yolks of six eggs, and two whites, currants, sugar, cinnamon, and rose-water, and salt, then put it into a pan, or pot, as thin as if it were a custard; and so bake it and serve it in the pot it is baked in, trimming the top with a little sugar or comfits.
Modern Redaction
This classic late Elizabethan baked dessert represents the antecedent of modern rice puddings as well as baked puddings such as bread puddings and bread and butter puddings. Indeed, other recipes for Whitepot from devon are made with baked layers of bread and custard.
Ingredients:
1l single cream
1/2 tsp rose water
1 tsp ground cinnamon
4 egg yolks
2 eggs, separated
120g short-grain pudding rice
120g sugar
100g currants
1/2 tsp salt caraway comfits or other comfits such as almonds (make these in the same way as caraway comfits)
Method:
Add the cream to a heavy-based pan, bring to a gentle simmer and cook for 4 minutes. Take off the heat then whisk in the cinnamon and rose water, frothing the cream as you beat. Return to the heat and simmer for 4 minutes further then take off the heat, stir in the rice, and set aside to cool for 20 minutes.
Whisk the egg yolks in a large bowl. Add the egg whites and beat until frothy before adding the sugar and beating the mixture until pale and creamy. When the cream and rice mix has cooled sufficiently pour into the beaten eggs, whisking constantly as you add. Now add the currants, beating to combine.
Turn the resultant mixture into a heat-proof bowl or baking dish. Transfer to an oven pre-heated to 180°C and bake for 20 minutes. Remove from the oven at this point and stir the mixture then return to the oven. Bake for a further 20 minutes then take out the pudding and stir once more (add a little more cream if the pudding looks too dry).
Scatter some sugar over the surface of the whitepot then return to the oven and bake for a further 20 minutes. At the end of this time, remove the whitepot from the oven (the rice should be soft and tender) and set aside to cool for 20 minutes.
Decorate the top with a few sugar comfits and eat either warm or cold.
