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COTTAGE PUDDING (to use up crusts of Bread)
Pour a kettleful of boiling water upon some pieces of stale bread, let them soak till quite soft, drain off the water, and beat them well with a fork. Take out any hard lumps that will not soften, and add a large lump of butter or dripping, or some finely-shredded suet, some moist sugar, a handful of currants, and a little grated nutmeg. Put the mixture into a well-buttered pie-dish, and bake in a good oven. A little jam may be eaten with this pudding, which is generally a favourite with children. Time to bake, one hour and a half or two hours. Probable cost, 2d. or 3d., exclusive of the stale bread.
A frugal bread pudding with no measurements at all — the proportions are left to the cook's judgement, which is the point of the dish. A few notes will keep it from turning heavy or watery.
- Squeeze the bread dryDraining is not enough; press the soaked bread firmly in a sieve or wring it in a clean cloth until it stops dripping. Excess water is the difference between a light pudding and a sodden one.
- A good ovenA moderately hot oven; the book gives no temperature, but something in the region of 350-375F is a reasonable modern reading, and the long bake argues for the lower end. At an hour and a half to two hours the top should be well browned and the centre set; check at 75 minutes, since modern ovens hold heat more evenly than a coal range.
- Working quantitiesFor about 8 oz of dry stale bread (roughly 6 thick slices' worth of crusts), use 2 oz butter, dripping or shredded suet, 2–3 oz sugar, 2 oz currants and a good grating of nutmeg. That fills a 1½-pint pie dish and serves four.
- Moist sugarThis is unrefined or partly refined soft sugar — light brown sugar is the nearest thing on a modern shelf. Caster sugar works but gives a paler, less caramelly pudding.
- Dripping and suetBeef dripping gives a savoury edge some will not want in a sweet pudding; butter is the safe choice. Shredded suet is sold in packets, beef or vegetarian, and needs no preparation.
- An egg is not called forWithout one the pudding is loose and spoonable rather than sliceable. If you want it to hold a shape, one beaten egg stirred in before baking is how richer versions of the same pudding are bound.
- CurrantsCurrants here are the small dried Zante grapes, not fresh blackcurrants. Rinse and pat them dry if they look dusty.
- Cost noteThe 2d. or 3d. is late-Victorian pence for the butter, sugar and fruit — the bread being counted as already paid for.
Bread loomed large in working-class household budgets, and no crust was thrown away while it could be soaked, grated or fried. Cassell's cookery volumes, reprinted in various editions over the course of decades, ran recipes under headings that announce their thrift outright — "to use up crusts of Bread" is a selling point, not an apology. The name is a common Victorian usage rather than a fixed formula: "cottage" signalled plain, cheap and domestic, in the same spirit as cottage pie, and the label was attached to any number of unrelated puddings. American cookbooks of the same era used "cottage pudding" for a plain butter cake with a poured sauce, which is why the term still means quite different things on either side of the Atlantic. The instruction to eat it with a little jam, and the note that children are fond of it, tells you the pudding's real place: the daily second course of a modest household, sweetened as far as the housekeeping would stretch.