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Albert Pudding
Beat six ounces of butter quite thin, then gradually mix with it five well-beaten eggs, half a pound of flour, and six ounces of loaf sugar on which the rind of a lemon has been grated; add half a pound of stoned raisins, and place the entire mixture in a mould which has been well buttered and lined with slices and stars made of citron peel and figs. Tie it up closely, and steam or boil it for at least three hours. Serve it with good melted butter, flavoured with lemon and brandy. Sufficient for six persons. Probable cost, 2s., exclusive of brandy.
A Victorian steamed sponge-and-fruit pudding, rich in butter and eggs with no raising agent beyond the beaten eggs. The success of it rests almost entirely on how you handle the butter and eggs.
- "Beat six ounces of butter quite thin"This means creaming softened butter until it is pale and soft enough to drop from the spoon, not melting it. Melted butter will not hold the eggs in suspension and the pudding will be dense and greasy.
- Adding the eggsFive eggs into 6 oz butter is a lot of liquid for a creamed mixture; add them a little at a time, alternating with a spoonful of the flour once it begins to look slack, to keep it from curdling.
- Loaf sugarLoaf sugar was refined sugar sold in a solid cone and broken up for use. Grating the lemon rind onto it captured the oils; caster or granulated sugar with the zest rubbed in achieves the same thing.
- Citron peel and figsThe mould is lined decoratively before filling, so the pattern shows when turned out. Candied citron is still sold at Christmas but can be hard to find; whole candied mixed peel cut into strips works, and dried figs should be sliced thin so they do not tear the pudding when unmoulded.
- "Tie it up closely"A pleated round of buttered baking parchment then foil, tied with string under the rim, gives the same seal as the traditional floured cloth. The pleat lets the pudding rise; a tight cover will split.
- Steaming three hoursSet the covered mould on a trivet in a pan with simmering water reaching halfway up, lid on, and top up with boiling water as it drops. Three hours suits this mass of mixture, and letting the pan boil dry is the obvious risk over so long a cooking.
- Stoned raisinsRaisins came with seeds and had to be stoned by hand. Modern seedless raisins go straight in.
- The "melted butter" sauceIn this period melted butter means a thickened butter sauce, not simply liquid butter. A sweet version made with butter, sugar and a little flour or cornflour, finished with lemon and brandy, is what is wanted; brandy butter also suits it.
- YieldSix servings, in a mould of about 1.5 litres / 2.5 pints.
Cassell's carries a run of puddings named for royalty and public figures, and Albert Pudding belongs to that group along with the more famous Albert biscuits and Albert sauce, all generally taken to nod to Prince Albert, who died in 1861 and whose name attached itself to a great many dishes. The construction is standard for the era: a creamed butter pudding, steamed in a lidded mould, decorated on the inside so the ornament appears on the outside once turned out. The costing at the end -- two shillings, brandy excluded -- was a normal feature of household dictionaries of the 1870s and after, and it marks this as a respectable middle-class dish rather than a grand one.