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Christmas Pudding, Economical and Good
Shred very finely a quarter of a pound of beef-suet, add a quarter of a pound of flour and a quarter of a pound of finely-grated breadcrumbs, six ounces of currants, picked and dried, six ounces of stoned raisins, two table-spoonfuls of brown sugar, a quarter of a pound of mashed carrot and the same of mashed potatoes, one ounce of chopped candied lemon and one ounce of fresh lemon-rind, salt to taste, and a table-spoonful of treacle. Mix these ingredients well together, tie loosely in a floured cloth, boil for four hours, and serve with brandy sauce. If possible, let this pudding be made a few hours before it is wanted. Probable cost, 1s. Sufficient for half a dozen persons.
A plain wartime-style plum pudding of the frugal kind: no eggs, no brandy in the batter, and grated root vegetables standing in for some of the fat and dried fruit. That absence of egg and spirit is the point to plan around.
- It will not keepTraditional Christmas puddings keep for months on the strength of eggs, heavy sugar and a good dose of brandy. This one has no eggs and no spirit, and only two tablespoonfuls of sugar with a spoonful of treacle, so treat it as a fresh steamed pudding: eat it the day it is made or the next, and refrigerate any remainder. The recipe's own instruction is to make it just a few hours before it is wanted.
- Beef suetAsk a butcher for fresh kidney suet and shred it cold, or use packet shredded suet (beef or vegetarian) measure for measure. Grating it while frozen is the easiest route to the fine shreds the recipe wants.
- TreacleBritish black treacle, not golden syrup; molasses is the closest widely available substitute, though blackstrap is noticeably more bitter than black treacle.
- The lemon rindOne ounce of fresh lemon rind is a substantial amount, the pared zest of several lemons. Pare it thinly to avoid white pith and chop it very fine.
- Carrot and potatoBoth should be cooked and mashed, then cooled before mixing. They supply moisture and body in place of egg, so do not skip them or the pudding will be dry and crumbly.
- Cloth or basinA floured cloth tied loosely leaves room for the pudding to swell. If you prefer a greased pudding basin, fill it to about three-quarters, cover with pleated parchment and foil, and tie under the rim.
- Four hours of boilingA cloth-tied pudding is boiled submerged; keep the water at a steady simmer and top it up with boiling water as it drops. If the pan runs dry the cloth scorches and the pudding takes on the taste.
- Yield and servingSix servings, as stated. Brandy sauce here means a sweet white sauce or custard flavoured with brandy, not a hard butter; serve it hot.
- That shilling"Probable cost, 1s" is the whole pudding in late-Victorian money.
Carrot and potato puddings were a well-established economy in nineteenth-century English cookery, the mashed vegetable supplying sweetness and moisture that would otherwise come from more fruit and more eggs, and the same trick reappeared on a national scale in both World Wars. The boiled-cloth method is older than the basin, and the pudding's ancestry is generally traced to the spiced meat-and-fruit "plum porridge" served at the start of a festive meal, which thickened over the eighteenth century into something firm enough to tie in cloth and turn out whole. What survives here is the shape of the tradition rather than its luxury: suet, dried fruit, candied peel and treacle, boiled long and served with a spirited sauce that carries the celebration the batter cannot afford.