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Graham Pudding
1 cup Molasses, 1 pinch of Salt, 1 cup skimmed Milk, 2 even teaspoonfuls The Great 2 cups Graham Flour, 1 Egg, "Arm & Hammer" Soda. 1 teaspoonful Cinnamon Mix together the molasses, milk, egg, salt and Soda and pour to the Graham flour. Flavor with cinnamon. Steam in a deep bread pan well greased and dusted with flour. To steam, place in a covered iron kettle or roast pan.
SAUCE. One cup sugar, half a cup of butter; mix together and pour in one cup of boiling water.
Flavor to taste.
A plain steamed molasses pudding of the kind that once ran on soda rather than eggs for lift. The original gives no steaming time and no yield, which are the two things you need to supply.
- Steaming timeExpect about 2 hours for a full deep bread pan, covered, with the water kept at a steady simmer. It is done when a skewer comes out clean and the pudding has pulled slightly from the sides; understeamed molasses batter stays gummy in the centre.
- The improvised steamer"A covered iron kettle or roast pan" means a water bath: set the greased pan on a rack or a folded towel inside the larger vessel, pour boiling water halfway up its sides, and clamp on a tight lid. Top up with boiling water as it evaporates so the kettle never runs dry.
- Graham flourCoarsely ground whole wheat, named for Sylvester Graham rather than for any process. Stone-ground whole wheat flour is the closest current equivalent; ordinary fine whole wheat works but gives a denser, less nutty crumb.
- Soda and molassesThe 2 teaspoons of soda are there to react with the acid in the molasses, and they supply most of the lift here (the single egg contributes little). Use unsulphured molasses rather than blackstrap, which is more bitter and will taste harsh at a full cup, and get the batter into the pan and over heat promptly once the soda is mixed in.
- Skimmed milkProbably called for because the cream was worth saving for other uses. Any milk you have is fine.
- The sauceSugar, butter and boiling water make a thin pouring sauce, not a thick one. Stir until the sugar has dissolved completely, and if you want it to coat, simmer it a few minutes to reduce.
- YieldServes 6 to 8, warm, with the sauce poured over at the table. Leftovers reheat well in the steamer or in a covered dish.
This reads like one of the small promotional recipe booklets that Church & Dwight distributed with "Arm & Hammer" baking soda, which would explain why the brand is named at all in a five-line recipe and why the soda is measured in "even teaspoonfuls" rather than approximated. Steamed puddings like this one belonged to a kitchen where oven heat was expensive and unreliable but a kettle was always on the stove, and they leaned on molasses because it was cheaper than refined sugar and, conveniently for the booklet's purposes, acidic enough to make the soda work. Graham flour takes its name from Sylvester Graham, the American dietary reformer of the 1830s who preached coarse unsifted wheat as a moral as well as a digestive good; by 1900 the name had long outlived his campaign and simply meant whole wheat on a sack.