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Montagu Pudding
Mix to a smooth batter two ounces of flour, a quarter of a pint of milk, and four eggs, well beaten. Then add half a pound of chopped (not rolled) suet, half a pound of stoned raisins--or a quarter of a pound of raisins, and a quarter of a pound of sultanas--and two table-spoonfuls of moist sugar. Pour the whole into a basin, flour a cloth, put it over the top, and tie down tightly. Plunge the pudding into a saucepan of boiling water, and boil for four hours. Sufficient for six persons. Probable cost, 1s.
A boiled suet pudding of the plainest kind: almost no flour, a great deal of fruit and fat, and four hours over the fire. A few conversions and one structural note will get it out of the cloth in one piece.
- The hinge: keep the water boiling and topped upFour hours is a long haul, and if the pan drops off the boil or the water falls below the rim of the basin the pudding sets unevenly and turns heavy. Keep a kettle of boiling water alongside and replenish from that, never from the cold tap.
- A quarter of a pintImperial measure, so about 5 fl oz or 140 ml, a little under two-thirds of a US cup. With only 2 oz (about 1/2 cup) of flour to four eggs, this is a very slack batter whose job is simply to bind the fruit and suet.
- Chopped, not rolled, suetBeef suet from a butcher, chopped to the size of small peas, gives coarser pieces than packet shredded suet; coarser pieces are usually said to leave larger pockets as they melt, for a lighter crumb. The original gives no reason for the instruction. Packet shredded or vegetarian suet will work but yields a denser pudding.
- Moist sugarVictorian shorthand for unrefined soft sugar that had not been dried hard. Light or dark soft brown sugar is the direct substitute.
- Stoned raisinsPitted. Nineteenth-century raisins arrived with seeds and had to be split and cleaned by hand; today's are already stoned, so simply weigh out 8 oz (225 g), or split the weight with sultanas as suggested.
- Basin and clothUse a 1 1/2-pint (900 ml) pudding basin, well buttered. A floured cloth tied tightly under the rim is the authentic closure; a pleated round of baking parchment topped with foil, tied with string and given a loop for a handle, is easier to lift and equally watertight. Stand the basin on a trivet or folded cloth so it does not rattle on the pan base.
- Boil or steamThe recipe boils the basin: it is plunged into a saucepan of boiling water, with the floured cloth tied tightly over the top to keep the water out. If you prefer, steam it in a covered pan with water halfway up the basin for the same four hours.
- ServingSix portions, as stated. Rest the pudding five minutes before turning out, and send it up with a sweet white sauce, brandy butter or thin custard, since the pudding itself is only lightly sweetened.
Cassell's assembled many of these boiled puddings under proper names, and Montagu Pudding belongs to a Victorian habit of attaching aristocratic surnames to household recipes; no documented connection between this pudding and any particular Montagu survives, and the book itself offers none. What the recipe really records is the economics of the boiled pudding: a pound of fruit and suet carried on two ounces of flour, cooked in one pot over a range that was lit anyway, at a probable cost of one shilling for six people. That last line is a Cassell's signature. The dictionary was written for households keeping accounts, and the costing mattered as much as the method, since a pudding of this sort was the cheapest way to finish a dinner with something rich.