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Steamed Graham Pudding
1/2 cup molasses, 1/2 cup milk, 1 egg, 1/4 cup Crisco, 1 1/2 cups graham flour, 1/2 teaspoon soda, 1 teaspoon salt, 1 cup stoned and chopped dates. Melt Crisco, add molasses, milk, egg well beaten, dry ingredients, mixed and sifted, and dates; turn into Criscoed mold, cover, and steam 2 1/2 hours. Serve with hard sauce. Figs cut in small pieces may be used in place of dates.
A plain steamed pudding of the sort that once ended a weeknight dinner. Nothing here is difficult, but the mold, the flour and the shortening all need a word.
- Graham flourGraham flour is coarsely ground whole wheat, bran and germ included. Ordinary whole wheat flour works; a stone-ground whole wheat is closest to the original texture.
- CriscoThis book was written to sell Crisco, so it appears in nearly every recipe. Any solid vegetable shortening does the same job, and 4 tablespoons of melted butter gives a better flavour with no change in method. "Criscoed mold" means simply a well-greased mold.
- The moldA 1- to 1 1/2-quart pudding basin, coffee tin or straight-sided metal bowl, greased and covered tightly with a lid or with foil tied down. The cover keeps condensed steam off the batter; without it the top turns to paste.
- How to steamSet the covered mold on a rack in a deep pot, add boiling water to come halfway up the sides, cover the pot and keep the water at a bare simmer. Check the level once an hour and top up with boiling water so the pot never runs dry.
- TimingTwo and a half hours is right for a full quart mold. Smaller molds or individual cups need far less time, from 45 minutes upward, and a skewer coming out clean is the reliable test.
- The saltA full teaspoon of salt in a batter this small reads high to modern palates, particularly alongside molasses. Half a teaspoon is more usual now, unless the shortening is unsalted and you want the contrast.
- Soda and molassesThe half teaspoon of soda is there to react with the acid in the molasses; this is the only leavening in the pudding. Use unsulphured molasses, not blackstrap, which is bitter and much stronger.
- Hard sauceAssumed knowledge at the time: butter creamed with powdered sugar and a flavouring, served cold in a lump so it melts over the hot pudding. Allow about half a cup of butter to a cup of sugar.
- YieldServes six modestly. It reheats well by steaming for 20 minutes.
This comes from one of the Crisco cookbooks Procter & Gamble commissioned after launching the shortening in 1911, and the recipes are structured as much to demonstrate the product as to feed anyone: hence "Criscoed mold" as a verb. Steamed puddings themselves are far older, a British inheritance that survived in American kitchens because they needed only a covered pot on the back of the stove rather than reliable oven heat. Graham flour carries a second bit of period baggage coming from Sylvester Graham, the 1830s dietary reformer whose advocacy of coarse unbolted wheat attached his name to the flour permanently. By 1915 the moral argument had faded and graham flour was simply an ingredient, valued for a nutty, slightly gritty crumb that suits dark molasses and dried fruit. Dates and figs both arrived dried and boxed, making this a pantry dessert available in any season.