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Lemon Pudding, Boiled
Shred six ounces of beef suet very finely. Mix with it half a pound of bread-crumbs, half a pound of sugar, a tea-spoonful of salt, the rind of two large lemons chopped small, the strained juice of one, and two well-beaten eggs. Pour the mixture into a buttered mould, plunge it into boiling water, and boil it quickly and continuously. Serve brandy sauce with it. If preferred, one ounce of ginger or half a pound of chopped figs may be substituted for the lemon-rind, but the juice should not be omitted. Time to boil, four hours. Probable cost, 1s. Sufficient for five or six persons.
A Victorian boiled suet pudding, close kin to Christmas pudding but lighter and sharper. The method is sound; only the vessel, the boiling time and a couple of the ingredient names need translating.
- The hinge: seal the mould"Plunge it into boiling water" assumes a lidded mould or a cloth tied over the top with string. Butter the basin, cover with a pleated round of baking parchment and foil, and tie it down firmly, or water will get in and you will have lemon porridge.
- Weights in metricSix ounces of suet is about 170 g; half a pound each of breadcrumbs and sugar is 225 g apiece. The mixture fills a 1.5-litre (1.5-quart) pudding basin with room to rise.
- SuetFresh beef suet from a butcher must be stripped of membrane and grated while very cold. Packaged shredded suet, beef or vegetable, is a direct substitute by weight; frozen grated butter works but gives a denser, shorter crumb.
- BreadcrumbsThe recipe says only 'bread-crumbs'. Soft fresh crumbs from a day-old loaf give the lighter result; dried or packaged crumbs absorb more liquid and tend to make the pudding tighter and heavier.
- The lemon rind"Chopped small" means pared zest cut fine, with no white pith, which is bitter. Finely grated zest from two large lemons is easier and distributes better; the strained juice of one goes in with the eggs.
- Boiling timeFour hours is longer than a basin of this size now needs; a 1.5-litre basin on a trivet in a covered pan of water is likely done in nearer 2 to 3 hours, though the original calls for quick, continuous boiling rather than a simmer. Top the pan up with boiling water so it never drops below halfway up the basin. A skewer should come out clean and the top spring back.
- "One ounce of ginger"Ambiguous. An ounce of ground ginger would be overwhelming, so chopped preserved or crystallised ginger is the likelier reading, in which case an ounce is right. If using ground, a rounded teaspoon is nearer the mark.
- Brandy sauceThe period sauce is a thin sweet white sauce, or creamed butter and sugar beaten with brandy, served melting over the hot pudding. Either suits; the pudding is sweet enough that the sauce should be restrained with sugar.
- Yield and turning outFive or six servings, as stated. Let the basin stand five minutes out of the water before inverting, or the pudding may collapse as it leaves the mould.
Boiled puddings in a cloth were the backbone of English domestic cookery from the seventeenth century onward, with basin puddings generally reckoned a later development, and suet — firm at room temperature, and melting only well into the cooking — was what made them possible before reliable ovens were common in ordinary kitchens. The formula is really a template: suet, crumbs, sugar, eggs, and one dominant flavour, which is why the recipe cheerfully offers ginger or figs in place of the lemon rind. The insistence on keeping the juice even when the rind is swapped out is telling; acid cuts the richness of a half-pound of sugar and six ounces of fat. The costing at one shilling is given as a matter of course.