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Fruit Puddings
Butter a mould or basin, and line it with a suet crust; three-quarters of a pound of flour, with four ounces of suet, will do for this purpose. Fill with fruit, and put in sugar, with a little water if the fruit requires it. Add a cover of paste, and press the edges closely together. Tie down with a floured cloth and put into boiling water. Some persons prefer to boil a pudding in a cloth, and for some fruits--those without much juice--this answers very well. Dip the cloth into hot water; and the better to form the pudding, stretch the cloth on a basin, lay the paste over, and fill with fruit. Time to boil, one hour and a half. Probable cost, 4d., exclusive of fruit. Sufficient for five or six persons.
A generic template for the boiled suet fruit pudding rather than a single dish, so the quantities are deliberately loose. The crust is the part that needs attention.
- The crust proportionsThree-quarters of a pound of flour (about 3 cups) to 4 oz suet is the ratio given, plus a pinch of salt and enough cold water to make a firm, rollable dough — roughly 6-7 fl oz. Many modern suet crusts use self-raising flour or add 1-2 teaspoons of baking powder for lift; the original specifies neither.
- SuetFresh beef suet grated from the kidney fat is what is meant. Packaged shredded suet, beef or vegetable, works directly; frozen grated butter is a common substitute but gives a shorter, less springy crust.
- The hinge: keep the water boilingThe pudding goes into water already at a rolling boil and should stay there for the full time. If the water drops off the boil the crust turns heavy and sodden — the usual explanation being that the suet melts out before the flour sets. Top up with boiling water from a kettle, never cold.
- Sealing the basinA floured cloth tied under the rim is the period method; a round of buttered baking parchment and a sheet of foil pleated across the middle and tied with string does the same job and is far easier to lift out. Stand the basin on a trivet, folded cloth or upturned saucer so it does not rattle on the pan base.
- Cloth-only puddingsThe alternative — no basin, just a scalded and floured cloth — is right for firm, low-juice fruit such as apples or gooseberries. Very juicy fruit will bleed through and the pudding loses its shape, which is why the text singles out the dry fruits.
- Fruit and sugarA 2-pint basin takes about 1½ lb prepared fruit. Sugar depends on the fruit: 2-3 oz for apples, 4-6 oz for gooseberries, damsons or rhubarb. Add water only for hard fruit like apples; berries and stone fruit release plenty on their own.
- TimingAn hour and a half suits a 1½ to 2 pint basin. A larger pudding needs two hours or more; the crust must be firm and dry to the touch when unwrapped, and the fruit tender through.
- Yield and servingFive or six as stated. Rest five minutes before turning out so the crust firms, and serve with custard, pouring cream or plain sugar.
The boiled suet pudding is the workhorse of the British kitchen from the eighteenth century into the twentieth, and Cassell's gives it here as a principle rather than a recipe — learn the crust and the method, then use whatever fruit the season and the garden supply. It survives because it needs no oven: a single pot over the fire could produce a whole hot meal. The costing is telling — fourpence for the crust, "exclusive of fruit". The pudding cloth predates the basin by a long way, and the switch to a buttered basin with a tied cover is generally traced to the nineteenth century.