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Eve's Pudding
Take half a pound of apples, half a pound of bread-crumbs, a pint of milk, half a pound of currants, six ounces of sugar, two eggs, and the grated rind of a lemon. Chop the apple small; add the bread-crumbs, currants, sugar and lemon-peel, then the eggs, well beaten; boil it three hours, in a buttered mould, and serve with sweet sauce.
A boiled suet-less pudding of the old school, mixed in one bowl and steamed for hours. Two things in the original need attention before you start: the milk never reappears in the method, and the mould must be covered.
- The missing milkThe milk is listed but never mentioned again. It goes in with the beaten eggs, stirred into the crumb mixture, which should end up a thick, spoonable batter rather than a stiff mass. If it looks soupy, hold back some of the milk; crumb absorbency varies enormously.
- Which pintAn American pint is 16 fl oz, a British one 20. Given the quantity of dry ingredients, either will work, but start with 16 fl oz and add more only if the mixture is too dry to fall from the spoon.
- Breadcrumbs by weightHalf a pound of fresh soft breadcrumbs is roughly 4 to 5 packed cups, made from stale white bread with the crusts off. Dried commercial crumbs are far denser and will give a heavy, sandy pudding; use them at about half the weight if that is all you have.
- CurrantsDried Zante currants, not fresh blackcurrants or red currants. Half a pound is about 1 1/2 cups. Toss them in a spoonful of the crumbs so they stay suspended rather than sinking to what will become the top.
- ApplesHalf a pound is about one large or two small cooking apples, peeled and cored before weighing is safest. Granny Smith or another tart firm variety chopped small, not grated, so the fruit keeps some definition.
- Boil means steamThe buttered mould is filled to about three-quarters, covered tightly with buttered parchment and foil tied down, and set in a pan of simmering water reaching halfway up the sides. Keep the water at a bare simmer and top it up with boiling water as it drops; a mould that boils dry will scorch and crack.
- Three hoursThree hours is right for a mould of about two quarts, filled three-quarters full, and is not padding. The pudding is done when a skewer comes out clean and the top springs back. Let it stand five minutes before turning out or it may slump.
- Sweet sauceIn a book of this date that means a thin pouring custard, or a sweet white sauce enriched with butter and flavoured with brandy or lemon. Hard sauce, creamed butter and sugar, is the other traditional partner.
- YieldServes six to eight. Leftovers reheat well by steaming slices for ten minutes.
Eve's pudding takes its name from the apples, and older cookery books often print it alongside a mnemonic rhyme that spells out the ingredients line by line: half a dozen apples, six ounces of bread and six of currants, five ounces of sugar, and the whole boiled three hours. The formula belongs to the long English tradition of boiled and steamed puddings tied in a cloth or set in a buttered mould, a method that predates reliable domestic ovens and survived well into the twentieth century because it needed only a pot and a fire. This version is a comparatively light one: no suet, with breadcrumbs and eggs doing the binding work. The name later drifted, and in most modern British kitchens Eve's pudding means something quite different, stewed apples under a baked sponge topping, so a reader looking for the boiled original will find it in books of this vintage rather than recent ones.