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COLLEGE PUDDINGS (small)
Shred six ounces of beef suet very finely, and mix with it six ounces of well-washed currants, six ounces of sifted sugar, half a pound of finely-grated bread-crumbs, three table-spoonfuls of sugar, a dessert-spoonful of chopped lemon-rind, a quarter of a nutmeg grated, three eggs well beaten, and two table-spoonfuls of brandy. Form the mixture into little puddings about the size and shape of a large duck's egg. Roll them in a little flour, and fry them, till lightly browned, in plenty of lard or butter over a clear but not too strong fire. Drain them from the fat, and serve them, piled high on a hot napkin, with wine sauce. Time to fry, from twenty to thirty minutes. Sufficient for eight puddings. Probable cost, 1 1/2d. each.
A fried suet pudding rather than a boiled one, and the frying is where it goes wrong most often. The mixture is soft and rich, so temperature control matters more than time.
- The sugar is listed twiceSix ounces of sifted sugar and then three tablespoonfuls more. This looks like a duplication in the text. Six ounces alone is plenty for this quantity of crumbs; if you want it sweeter, add the spoonfuls, but do not expect a mixture that holds together well with both.
- Frying temperature"A clear but not too strong fire" means steady moderate heat. Too hot and the outside browns long before the egg and suet set through; too cool and the puddings soak up lard.
- Twenty to thirty minutes is not a misprintThese are duck-egg-sized balls of raw suet and crumb, and they genuinely need that long to cook to the centre. Turn them frequently so they colour evenly rather than flattening on one side.
- Deep fat, not shallow"Plenty of lard or butter" means enough to come at least halfway up the puddings. Butter alone will brown and burn over half an hour; lard, or a neutral frying oil, holds up better.
- SuetShredded beef suet is sold ready-prepared in the UK and by butchers elsewhere. Vegetable suet works and behaves much the same. If you are shredding your own from raw kidney fat, chill it hard first and remove every trace of membrane.
- CurrantsThese are dried Zante currants, not fresh redcurrants or blackcurrants. Modern packaged fruit does not need the washing the original assumes, though a brief soak in hot water plumps it and stops the fruit scorching in the fat.
- BreadcrumbsHalf a pound of fine crumbs from a day-old white loaf, dried but not toasted. Commercial dry crumbs are thirstier and will give a stiff, sandy mixture.
- Wine saucePeriod wine sauces for puddings are sweet ones, typically sugar, butter and sherry or Madeira, lightly thickened and served hot. A custard or a brandy butter serves the same purpose.
- YieldThe recipe gives eight puddings. The "hot napkin" is a folded cloth on the serving dish to absorb residual fat.
College puddings appear in English cookery books from the seventeenth century onward, and the name is often said to derive from the university colleges — the long-standing form is "New College puddings," pointing to Oxford — where a small individual suet pudding of this kind was long served in hall. Recipes of the period split between boiled or steamed versions in small basins and fried ones like this, which is essentially a mincemeat mixture shaped and browned in fat. The costing at a penny-halfpenny each is characteristic of the book, which was written for households that budgeted per portion; suet, bread and dried fruit were cheap ways to end a meal richly, and the brandy and nutmeg carry the whole thing into the territory of Christmas pudding without the hours of steaming.