Parks Canada Heritage Gourmet Recipes

Queen Pudding

This custard-like pudding is impressive with its meringue topping.

Origin: Rogers Pass National Historic Site
Region: West (British Columbia)
Period: 19^th Century
Course: Desserts and Baked Goods

Historic image of railway line, mountains and Glacier House
© Glenbow Museum NA-3740-43 / www.glenbow.org

Queen Pudding was served at Glacier House, a Canadian Pacific Railroad (CPR) hotel and dining room located at the base of Rogers Pass in the Rocky Mountains of British Columbia. Dining cars were too heavy to pull through the pass, so in 1886 the CPR opened a dining room at its base to serve its passengers. Glacier House was dramatically situated near the foot of the “Great Glacier” (today’s Illecillewaet Glacier), and the area soon attracted mountain climbers from across Europe and North America. The CPR expanded the original accommodations into a luxury hotel, and Glacier House chefs imported ingredients to recreate familiar dishes for wealthy Europeans and North Americans so that visitors could have all the luxuries of home. This pudding was served as part of the luncheon menu in the Glacier House dining room on 27 July 1915.

Queen Pudding

Ingredients:

• 1 pint | 370 g fine bread crumbs
• 1 quart | 1 litre milk
• 1 cup | 250 g sugar
• 1 teacupful | 200 g of sugar
• 4 eggs, separated
• 1 lemon, zest and juice
• 1 cup | 250 g fruit jelly (any flavour)
• "a piece of butter the size of an egg" | 80 g
• ¾ cup | 200 ml cream or whipped cream for garnishing, if desired

Directions:

• Mix bread crumbs, milk, 1 cup sugar, egg yolks, butter and lemon zest. Beat well. Pour into greased 11" x 7" (28cm × 18cm) baking dish or 6 individual baking dishes. Bake at 400°F (200°C) for 20 minutes and then 375°F (190°C) for 30 minutes until done but not watery; reduce second cooking time by 10 minutes if using individual dishes.
• Whip the egg whites until stiff peaks form. Mix the teacupful of sugar with the lemon juice and then beat into the egg whites.
• Spread a layer of jelly over the cooked pudding, and then spread the whipped egg whites over the jelly. Return to the oven and bake for a short time until meringue tips are lightly browned. Eat the pudding cold, served with cream or whipped cream.

Credits:

Recipe tested by Chef David Fairbanks, Algonquin College School of Hospitality and Tourism

Adapted from a recipe in the book Our New Cookbook and Household Receipts: Carefully Selected and Indexed, written by Sarah Annie Frost and published by People’s Publishing, Boston, 1883.