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Hedgehog Pudding
Shred half a pound of beef suet very finely. Mix with it a quarter of a pound of flour, a quarter of a pound of bread-crumbs, half a pound of currants, half a pound of raisins, half a pound of sugar, one ounce each of candied lemon, orange, and citron, half a nutmeg, grated, a dessert-spoonful of lemon-juice, a small pinch of salt, three or four sweet almonds, blanched and sliced, four eggs, and as much ale as will make the pudding into a stiff paste. Mix the dry ingredients first; afterwards add the eggs and ale. Tie the pudding in a cloth, plunge it into boiling water, and keep it boiling for five hours. Have ready three ounces of blanched almonds. Stick them into the pudding before sending it to table, and serve with brandy sauce. Sufficient for six or eight persons. Probable cost, 1s. 10d.
A boiled plum pudding of the standard Victorian type, distinguished only by the almonds bristling from its surface at the table. Nothing here is difficult, but the cloth and the five-hour boil both need managing.
- The hinge: keep the water boiling and topped upThe pudding must stay fully submerged in water at a steady rolling boil for the whole five hours. Keep a kettle of boiling water at hand and top up as it evaporates — cold water added to the pot, or a pudding that breaks the surface, will leave a raw, sodden band through the middle.
- The clothScald the cloth, wring it out, then flour the inside surface generously and shake off the excess. The flour forms the skin that holds the pudding together. Tie it loosely enough to allow perhaps an inch of swelling, and gather the ends up out of the water.
- A basin insteadIf you would rather not wrestle a cloth, the same mixture goes into a buttered three-pint (1.7 litre) pudding basin covered with pleated parchment and foil, steamed rather than boiled, for at least the same five hours. It will be a neater shape but a softer, paler crust.
- SuetBeef suet shredded from the raw fat is what the recipe means; packaged shredded suet (beef or vegetable) works directly and needs no preparation. If using block suet, freeze it briefly and grate it, tossing with a little of the flour to stop it clumping.
- AleA plain English bitter or mild, not a hoppy IPA or anything sour — bitterness concentrates over five hours. Expect to need somewhere between a quarter and half a pint; add it a little at a time until the mixture just holds together as a stiff paste.
- Candied citronAn ounce each of candied lemon, orange and citron means the whole candied peel, chopped, not the fine mixed peel sold for fruitcake. Citron is the hardest of the three to find; more candied lemon is the usual substitute.
- The almondsBlanched almonds soften and discolour if pushed in early. Split them lengthwise, toast them lightly if you like, and stick them into the hot pudding only at the moment it goes to the table, points outward.
- Brandy sauceThe period sauce is a sweetened white sauce or a custard finished with brandy, served hot. A hard sauce of creamed butter, icing sugar and brandy is the other traditional partner and needs no cooking.
- Yield and keepingSix to eight portions, as stated, and richer than the size suggests. It keeps well wrapped and cold for a week or more, and reheats by steaming for about an hour.
The name is purely visual: a dark, domed pudding stuck all over with split blanched almonds looks like a hedgehog with its spines up, and the conceit was a stock piece of Victorian table theatre. It was applied to several quite different dishes mmoulded almond creams, shaped cakes, and puddings like this one the only common thread being the almond quills. Underneath, this is an ordinary rich boiled plum pudding of the kind that filled English cookbooks from the eighteenth century onward: suet, breadcrumbs eked out with a little flour, dried fruit, candied peel, spice, eggs, and ale as the liquid, boiled for hours in a floured cloth. Cassell's habit of quoting a probable cost here 1s. 10d. is usually taken to have been aimed at the middle-class housekeeper budgeting a week's meals, and on that reading it places the dish in the category of an affordable treat rather than a luxury. Ale rather than milk or brandy as the wetting liquid is often said to be the older, plainer practice, and it is generally thought to darken the crumb as well as feeding the fruit.