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Exeter Pudding
Beat up seven eggs with six ounces of moist sugar and a quarter of a pint of rum. Take ten ounces of bread-crumbs, seven ounces of finely-shredded suet, and four ounces of sago; add them gradually to the egg-mixture, with the rind of a small lemon cut very delicately. Beat all together, and when ready, butter a pudding-mould, cover the bottom of it with ratafias, and then put in some of the mixture. Next, lay in slices of spongecake well spread with jam, and again the ratafias, filling up alternately with the mixture and slices of spongecake, but finishing with the mixture on the top. Bake in a rather quick oven. Make a sauce with a quarter of a pound of black currant jelly, warmed up with a couple of glasses of sherry. Pour it warm over the pudding when turned out of the mould, and serve hot. Time, an hour and a quarter to bake. Probable cost, 2s. 6d. Sufficient for seven or eight persons. F
A rich baked suet-and-crumb pudding layered like a trifle. The original gives a time and a yield; what it withholds is the oven number and the fate of the sago.
- Oven temperature"A rather quick oven" in a Victorian range means roughly 400F. For a dense mixture baked an hour and a quarter, 375-400F is the working range; cover the top loosely with foil if the surface colours before the centre sets.
- Sago needs liquidFour ounces of dry pearl sago added straight to the eggs is likely to stay gritty. Sago was more usually swelled in hot milk or water and cooled before being mixed in; without that step the pudding may bake with hard specks through it.
- RatafiasSmall crisp almond macaroons, sold as ratafia biscuits and still available in Britain; amaretti are the closest supermarket substitute. They were originally flavoured with bitter almond, which is why the name attaches to almond biscuits and to the cordial.
- Moist sugarUnrefined light brown sugar, damp from residual molasses. Light muscovado is the direct equivalent; ordinary granulated will work but gives a paler, plainer flavour.
- SuetSeven ounces of shredded beef suet, which is what the pudding's texture depends on. Packaged shredded suet, beef or vegetable, is the practical option; grating chilled block suet by hand also works, but oil or butter will not hold the crumb structure.
- Quarter of a pintAn imperial quarter-pint is 5 fl oz, about 140 ml, not the US half-cup. This applies to the rum; "a couple of glasses of sherry" in this period means wine glasses of roughly 2 to 2.5 fl oz each.
- The mouldThe recipe does not give a size; the quantities, serving seven or eight, need a large basin or charlotte mould, well buttered so the layered structure turns out whole. Let it stand five to ten minutes before inverting, or the hot mixture will slump.
- Sauce and servingWarm the blackcurrant jelly gently with the sherry until just fluid; boiling drives off the wine and stiffens the jelly on cooling. Serves seven to eight, as the original states.
Cassell's files a long list of puddings under place names, and Exeter Pudding is one of the group whose connection to its town is now untraceable. What the recipe does show clearly is the mid-century habit of building a hot pudding out of the confectioner's shelf: bought sponge cake, bought ratafias, jam and jelly, held together with suet, breadcrumbs and eggs. Sago, a starch from the pith of the sago palm, reached British kitchens through the East India trade and by the later nineteenth century was cheap and common enough to be a routine thickener for everyday puddings, which is why it turns up here as bulk rather than as a feature. The costing in shillings and pence is part of Cassell's method throughout: the book was written for households keeping accounts.