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Cracker Plum Pudding
Ten Boston crackers, one quart milk, four eggs, three quarters of a pound chopped raisins. Soak the crackers in the milk over night, beat the eggs very light, mix all together and bake one hour. When about half cold eat with a rich sauce.
A thrifty milk-and-cracker pudding of the sort that filled out New England supper tables. The original gives no oven temperature, no dish size and no sugar — most of what a modern cook needs is what it leaves out.
- Boston crackersThese were large, thick, unsweetened hard crackers, closer to the surviving Vermont "common cracker" than to a soda cracker. Sizes varied, but ten would amount to something on the order of half a pound; unsalted water crackers will stand in, split or broken up so the milk can get into them.
- Oven temperatureNone is given, as was usual when ranges were judged by hand. Bake at 350F in a buttered 2-quart dish; the hour stated is about right, and the pudding is done when a knife comes out clean and the centre is just set.
- There is no sugar in itThe raisins and the sauce carry all the sweetness, which is why the sauce reads as part of the dish rather than an extra: a hard sauce, a boiled vanilla or lemon sauce, or a sweetened cream.
- The overnight soakThis is the hinge. The crackers must go completely soft and absorb the whole quart of milk, or the finished pudding will have dry, gritty pockets. Cover and refrigerate rather than leaving it out overnight.
- Beating the eggs"Very light" means beaten until pale and foamy, which lifts an otherwise dense mixture. Fold them into the soaked crackers rather than stirring hard.
- RaisinsThree quarters of a pound is a generous amount — about 2 cups. Chopping matters: whole raisins sink and clump, chopped ones distribute. Dredging them in a spoonful of flour helps further.
- Serving temperature"When about half cold" means barely warm, not hot from the oven and not chilled. The custard sets as it cools and the flavour is better at that point.
- YieldA quart of milk and four eggs makes six to eight servings. It is rich and plain at once, and a small portion goes further than it looks.
Cracker puddings belong to the large family of nineteenth-century American desserts built on stale bread, crackers or rice — cheap starch swollen with milk and bound with eggs, the same logic as bread pudding and Indian pudding. Boston crackers were a New England pantry staple, sold from barrels by the pound and keeping far better than bread. Calling it a "plum pudding" reflects the old English use of plum to mean raisin or dried fruit generally, a usage that survives in the name of the boiled Christmas pudding, with which this dish otherwise has little in common. The recipe gives neither oven temperature nor dish size, as printed recipes of the period frequently did not, and the instruction to eat it with "a rich sauce" indicates the sauce was reckoned part of the dish.