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Graham Pudding
Two coffee-cups graham flour, one coffee-cup sour milk, one coffee-cup chopped raisins, one-half a cup molasses, one egg, one teaspoonful soda mixed in a little hot water, one nutmeg, one teaspoonful cinnamon, a little salt. Steam three hours.
A plain steamed pudding of the sour-milk-and-soda family, closer to a dense brown bread than to a modern dessert. Nothing here is difficult, but the measurements and the steaming setup both need translating.
- The coffee-cupNineteenth-century coffee cups were usually reckoned larger than teacups, somewhere between 3/4 cup and a full cup; 3/4 cup is a common working figure. Treat the unit as consistent within the recipe: two units of graham flour, one of sour milk, one of raisins, so roughly 1 1/2 cups flour, 3/4 cup milk, 3/4 cup raisins. The recipe switches to a plain 'cup' for the molasses, which may or may not mean the same vessel; half a standard cup is a reasonable reading.
- Graham flourWhole-wheat flour, coarsely ground and with the bran and germ intact. Ordinary stone-ground whole wheat is the closest match; regular whole-wheat flour works, though the crumb will be finer.
- Sour milk and sodaThe soda needs acid to lift the batter. Cultured buttermilk is the reliable substitute — do not use fresh milk left out to spoil. Dissolving the teaspoon of soda in a little hot water, as directed, keeps it from streaking the dense batter.
- One nutmegA whole grated nutmeg yields something like 2 to 3 teaspoons, which will dominate a pudding this size. A grating or two, around 1/2 teaspoon, suits most modern palates; scale up if you want the older, heavily spiced effect.
- The batter is stiffThe batter -- With this ratio the mixture is thick but should still pour or spoon out easily; graham flour absorbs liquid as it stands, so judge it after a few minutes. Adjust with sour milk a spoonful at a time rather than thinning it all at once.
- Steaming setupGrease a 1 1/2 to 2 quart pudding mold or heatproof bowl, fill it no more than two-thirds so the pudding can rise, cover tightly with a lid or foil tied down, and set it on a rack in a covered pot with boiling water reaching halfway up the mold. Top up with boiling water as it evaporates; the pot must never run dry.
- Time and donenessThree hours is right for a full-size mold, and long steaming is what gives the pudding its dark, moist crumb. It is done when a skewer comes out clean and the top springs back; smaller individual molds finish in about an hour.
- Yield and servingServes six to eight. The recipe gives no serving direction, but steamed puddings of this kind were commonly sent to table with a sauce -- hard sauce, a thin lemon or vanilla sauce, or simply cream. Without one the pudding eats dry.
Graham flour takes its name from Sylvester Graham, the American temperance preacher and dietary reformer of the 1830s who campaigned for coarse unsifted wheat meal against the fashionable white bread of the day. By the time this book was printed his name had detached from his crusade and become an ordinary shopping term: graham flour, graham bread, graham crackers. The recipe itself belongs to an older and more practical tradition than health reform — steamed puddings let a cook produce a hot dessert on a range already occupied with other work, and the sour milk and soda combination was the standard leavening in kitchens where milk soured faster than it could be drunk and chemical baking powder was still a purchase rather than a staple. Molasses and raisins supply nearly all the sweetness, which places the dish in the long line of New England brown-bread-and-pudding cookery.