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Currant Dumpling
Make a light suet crust (see CRUST, SUET). Before moistening it mix half a pound of dried currants with every pound of flour. Add milk to make a light batter, and boil either in one large dumpling tied in a floured cloth, or in half a dozen without cloths. In the latter case the dumplings should be dropped into boiling water, and be looked after at first to see that they do not stick to the pan. Serve with lemon-juice and sugar. Time to boil, one hour and a half with a cloth; half an hour without. The dumplings will rise to the top when done enough. Probable cost, 10d., for half a dozen small dumplings.
A plain boiled suet pudding scaled down to dumpling size. The one thing to settle before you start is what the dough should feel like: a suet crust for boiling wants to be a soft, just-cohesive dough, not the pourable "batter" the wording suggests.
- Currants are not red currantsIn British usage these are dried Zante grapes, sold as currants next to the raisins. Fresh red or black currants would flood the dough with juice and will not work here.
- The crust proportionsA suet crust of this kind is commonly in the region of 1 lb flour to 6-8 oz shredded suet, with a raising agent or self-raising flour and a good pinch of salt; the book's own CRUST, SUET entry is the reference the recipe intends. Beef suet from a butcher is best; packet shredded suet, including vegetable suet, behaves in much the same way.
- "Light batter" means soft doughAdd the milk gradually and stop when the mass just holds together and leaves the bowl clean. If it will pour, it is too wet to hold shape in the water. Handle it as little as possible once it comes together.
- Half a pound of currants per pound of flourThat is a generous 1:2 ratio by weight, and the fruit goes in dry, before the milk. Tossing it through the dry flour and suet keeps it from clumping into a single sweet seam.
- The clothScald a square of cotton or muslin, wring it out, and dust it heavily with flour before wrapping. The flour forms the skin that keeps water out. Tie loosely enough for the dumpling to swell by about a quarter.
- Boiling and timingWater at a steady rolling boil, and the pan must be deep enough that a large dumpling floats free. Ninety minutes for one large cloth-boiled dumpling and thirty for small free-boiled ones are both realistic. Rising to the top is not a reliable sign that the centre is done; a skewer into the middle of the large one should come out clean and hot.
- ServingLemon juice and sugar is the frugal Victorian sauce. Half a dozen small dumplings feed four to six; the large one serves the same number cut in wedges. Custard, cream or golden syrup all suit it if you want something richer.
- The cost noteTenpence in pre-decimal money, from a book that gives a probable cost for most of its dishes. It is a period reference point, not a guide to what the ingredients cost now.
Boiled suet puddings were the backbone of British domestic cooking from the eighteenth century into the twentieth: a cloth, a pot of water and a fire were all the equipment required, which mattered enormously in kitchens without a reliable oven. Currant dumplings sat at the cheap end of that tradition, the same dough that wrapped a beefsteak turned sweet with a handful of dried fruit and boiled alongside the day's other cooking. The costing in pence is characteristic of Cassell's, which was written for households where the difference between a tenpenny dish and a shilling one decided what appeared on the table.