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Aunt Mary's Pudding
Well butter a plain mould, and stick alternate layers of raisins and sliced almonds round it. Pour a breakfast-cupful of warm fresh milk over a tea-cupful of finely-grated bread-crumbs. Let them soak for a little while, then add a small piece of butter, a dessert-spoonful of sugar, a little thinly-grated lemon-rind, and two eggs. Beat all well together, pour the mixture into the mould, cover it closely, and allow it to steam for three hours. Probable cost, 6d. Sufficient for four or five persons.
A plain steamed breadcrumb custard, lined with dried fruit and nuts so it turns out patterned. The Victorian cup measures and the steaming time are the two things to settle before you start.
- Breakfast cup and teacupA breakfast-cupful is roughly 8-10 fl oz (250-300 ml); a teacupful is about 5-6 fl oz, which here gives something in the region of 2-3 oz / 55-85 g of crumbs, depending on how dry the bread is. The ratio matters more than the exact figures: enough milk to soak the crumbs to a loose, spoonable batter.
- Dessert-spoonfulTwo teaspoons, so about 10 g of sugar. This is a barely sweet pudding by modern taste, relying on the raisins; a tablespoon is a defensible increase.
- The mouldA plain mould means a smooth-sided metal or china pudding basin, on this quantity probably 1 to 1 1/2 pints / 600-850 ml. Butter it heavily and cold, so the raisins and almonds stay stuck to the sides while you pour in the batter.
- Sliced almondsBlanched almonds sliced lengthways, rather than thin commercial flakes, which break up and slip against the mould. Whole blanched almonds halved lengthways hold their line best.
- Cover it closelyA pleated round of buttered baking paper with foil over it, tied under the rim, or a tight-fitting lid. The pleat lets the pudding rise; without a seal, condensation from the pan lid soaks the top.
- Three hours is too longThree hours is longer than this mixture needs -- that timing suits a suet pudding or a bigger basin. An egg-and-milk custard of this size will usually set in about 1 to 1 1/4 hours of gentle steaming; pushed much further, the eggs are apt to tighten and the pudding to weep on the plate. The water beneath should shiver, not boil hard.
- Turning outLet it stand five minutes off the heat before inverting, so the set firms and the fruit releases cleanly. Run a knife round the top edge only.
- Yield and servingFour to five small helpings, as stated. It wants a pouring accompaniment: thin custard, warm apricot jam let down with water, or cream.
Cassell's belongs to the great age of the English steamed pudding, when a basin over a pan of water gave a hot sweet course from a coal range that might already be full. Breadcrumb puddings of this kind were the frugal end of the family: no suet, no flour, two eggs, and stale bread grated fine, with the raisins and almonds doing all the display work by being pressed against the mould so the turned-out pudding arrives patterned. The "probable cost, 6d" is characteristic of the dictionary, which costed nearly every dish for a mistress budgeting a household. Names like Aunt Mary's, Grandmother's or Sister Susan's pudding were a common Victorian convention, signalling a homely, unpretentious dish, though some such names may well have recorded a real person; they were passed between manuscript receipt books and printed collections freely, and no particular Aunt Mary has been identified behind this one.