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Plum Pudding, Baked, Without Suet
Grate finely half a pound of the crumb of a stale loaf. Pour over it half a pint of boiling milk, and beat into it whilst warm four ounces of butter. Let this stand until cold, then add a quarter of a pound of picked currants, a quarter of a pound of chopped raisins, three ounces of moist sugar, an ounce and a half of candied peel cut into shreds, half a salt-spoonful of grated nutmeg, and a pinch of salt. Beat all these ingredients smoothly together; add two well-beaten eggs, and a table-spoonful of brandy if liked. Pour the mixture into a buttered mould, and bake in a well-heated oven. Turn the pudding out before serving, and sift powdered sugar thickly over it. This pudding can be steamed instead of baked. When this is done, the basin which contains it should be put into a saucepan upon a plate which has been turned upside down. Boiling water, three inches deep, should be poured round it, and this should be kept boiling until the pudding is done enough. It is very good cold. Time to bake or steam, an hour and a quarter. Probable cost, 1s. 2d. Sufficient for five or six persons.
A suet-free plum pudding that behaves more like a rich bread pudding than the boiled cannonball of Christmas. The measurements convert cleanly; the only real decisions are oven temperature and how you handle the mould.
- Quantities in metric and cupsHalf a pound of breadcrumbs is 225 g, roughly 4 cups loosely packed fresh crumbs from a stale loaf. Half a pint is 10 fl oz British, so 285 ml or about 1¼ cups. Four ounces of butter is 115 g, a US stick.
- "Well-heated oven"The book gives no temperatures, so this is a judgement call. For a custard-set bread mixture, a moderate oven of around 350F/180C is a safe modern reading; much hotter will set the outside before the centre has warmed through.
- Moist sugarVictorian "moist sugar" is an unrefined soft brown sugar, damp and slightly sticky. Light muscovado is the closest modern equivalent; ordinary light brown sugar works.
- A salt-spoonfulThe salt spoon of a Victorian cruet set held about a quarter teaspoon, so half a salt-spoonful of nutmeg is roughly ⅛ teaspoon. Grate it fresh; pre-ground nutmeg at that dose registers as dust.
- The hinge: let it go coldThe butter is beaten into hot milk-soaked crumbs, then the mixture must cool completely before the eggs go in. Add the eggs to a warm panade and they scramble, leaving a grainy pudding that weeps in the oven.
- Currants and peel"Picked" currants means gone over for stalks and grit, which packaged dried currants no longer need. Candied peel bought in tubs is often already diced; an ounce and a half is about 40 g.
- Steaming setupThe upturned plate in the saucepan is a trivet, keeping the basin off direct heat. Cover the basin with buttered parchment and foil tied under the rim. The recipe says to keep the water boiling; a steady simmer is easier to manage in a modern pan. Top up with boiling water as it falls.
- Mould and turning outButter a 1.5-litre (2½-pint) pudding basin or charlotte mould generously. Let a baked pudding settle five minutes before inverting; a steamed one turns out more reliably after ten. Sift the sugar over just before it goes to the table so it does not dissolve.
- YieldFive or six servings, as stated. It is genuinely good cold the next day, sliced, and takes well to a spoonful of cream or brandy butter.
"Plum pudding" has meant a pudding of dried fruit, not plums, since at least the eighteenth century, "plum" having been an English catch-all for raisins and currants. The defining ingredient of the classic Christmas version is beef suet, which is why a recipe like this one announces its absence in the title. The book gives a probable cost of 1s. 2d., as it does throughout. Here the fat is butter and the body comes from breadcrumbs soaked in milk, as in the older family of bread and cabinet puddings. The offer to bake or steam the same mixture is common in cookery books of the period.