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Black Cap Pudding
Mix 1/4 cup currants, with 3 tablespoons sugar, 1/2 teaspoon salt, 1 1/4 cups flour sifted with 1 teaspoon baking powder, 1/2 teaspoon grated nutmeg, 2 tablespoons Crisco, 2 well beaten eggs, and 2 cupfuls milk, and beat well together. Crisco a pudding mold, sprinkle in some currants, pour in mixture, cover with greased paper and steam for 2 hours. Serve with milk.
A steamed batter pudding of the old English type, thin enough to pour and dense with currants. Nothing here is difficult, but the ratios and the vessel need translating.
- Why it is called black capThe currants sprinkled into the greased mold sit at the bottom, which becomes the top when the pudding is turned out — a dark cap over pale batter. Scatter them in an even layer rather than heaping them in the center.
- CriscoStraight shortening, and this book exists to sell it. Two tablespoons of butter will do in the batter, though it adds a little water and flavour that the shortening does not; butter or a neutral oil is fine for greasing the mold.
- CurrantsDried Zante currants, the small black raisin, not fresh red or black currants. Plump them in warm water for ten minutes and pat dry if they are hard.
- The batter is meant to be thinTwo cups of milk to a cup and a quarter of flour gives something closer to pancake batter than cake batter. Do not add flour to thicken it; the pudding sets by steam, and the looseness is what makes it tender.
- The moldA one and a half to two quart pudding basin or steamed-pudding mold, filled no more than two thirds. Cover with greased parchment and a layer of foil, pleated across the middle to allow rise, and tie or crimp it down so condensation cannot drip in.
- Steaming setupStand the mold on a rack in a deep pot with boiling water coming halfway up the sides, lid on, water at a bare simmer. Check every 40 minutes and top up with boiling water; a pot that runs dry will scorch the mold and stall the cooking.
- DonenessTwo hours is right for a full-sized mold. It is done when a skewer comes out clean and the pudding has pulled slightly from the sides. Rest ten minutes before turning out or it will slump.
- Yield and servingServes about six. "Serve with milk" most likely means cold milk poured over at the table; a thin custard sauce or cream with a little sugar suits modern tastes better.
A Calendar of Dinners was written by Marion Harris Neil and published by Procter & Gamble as a promotional cookbook for Crisco, the hydrogenated cottonseed shortening introduced in 1911 — which is why the fat in this recipe is named as a brand and used as a verb ("Crisco a pudding mold"). The pudding itself is much older and thoroughly English: black cap pudding is a currant batter pudding, close kin to the mixture used for Yorkshire pudding, and the name refers simply to the dark layer the fruit forms at the top once the basin is inverted. Small versions were sometimes steamed in cups so each person got a whole capped pudding.