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Plum Pudding, Excellent
Take six ounces of finely-grated bread-crumbs, and mix with them a pound of flour, a pound of finely-shredded beef suet, a tea-spoonful of salt, half a pound of raw sugar, three-quarters of a pound of stoned and chopped raisins, three-quarters of a pound of currants, two ounces each of candied lemon, orange, and citron cut into shreds, a quarter of a pound of apples, pared, cored, and chopped, half an ounce of mixed spice, consisting of pounded cloves, cinnamon and grated nutmeg, and half a tea-spoonful of finely-minced lemon-rind. Mix these ingredients thoroughly, then make the mixture into a stiff batter by adding to it five eggs beaten up with half a pint of milk and a glass of brandy. Turn the pudding either into a cloth or a mould; if the latter is used, it must be filled to the brim, and covered with a cloth. Put the pudding into boiling water, and keep it boiling until done enough. Sift powdered sugar over the pudding before serving it, and send brandy sauce or whip sauce to table in a tureen. Time to boil, five hours. Probable cost, 3s. Sufficient for seven or eight persons.
A full-sized Victorian boiled pudding, generous with suet and dried fruit and boiled a hard five hours. Nothing here is difficult, but the quantities and the vessel need translating.
- The hinge: the water must never stop boilingA boiled pudding that is allowed to go off the boil will sink and turn heavy and sodden in the middle. Keep a kettle on and top up with boiling water only, so the level stays well up the side of the basin for the whole five hours.
- Imperial measuresHalf a pint of milk is 10 imperial fluid ounces, about 1 1/4 US cups. A "glass" of brandy in a cookbook of this date is roughly a wineglassful, 2 to 2 1/2 fluid ounces (1/4 cup). The dry ingredients alone come to a little over 5 lb; with the eggs, milk and brandy the mixture runs nearer 6 1/2 lb.
- Yield"Seven or eight persons" is modest for this bulk. Cut into small wedges, as a pudding this rich is usually served, it will stretch to twelve or more.
- Beef suetShredded beef suet is still sold in Britain, fresh from a butcher or dried in packets; a packet of shredded suet can be used weight for weight. Frozen suet grated on the coarse side of a box grater is the nearest home substitute. Butter gives a denser, shorter pudding, not the light open crumb suet produces.
- Raw sugar and mixed spice"Raw sugar" here means unrefined cane sugar of the muscovado or demerara sort, not white. The half-ounce of mixed spice is about 2 tablespoons (roughly 6 teaspoons) of ground cloves, cinnamon and nutmeg combined. Go light on the cloves.
- Candied peel and citronTwo ounces each of lemon, orange and citron peel means the whole candied caps, cut into shreds yourself, not the pre-diced tubs of mixed peel. Citron is the hardest to find; extra candied orange peel is the usual stand-in.
- The mould filled to the brimUnlike a steamed sponge, this batter contains no chemical raising agent and barely rises, hence filling the basin full. Butter the basin, cover with pleated parchment and foil or a floured cloth tied under the rim, and stand it on a trivet or folded cloth so it does not sit on the pan base.
- If you use a clothScald the cloth, wring it out, flour the inside heavily, then fill and tie loosely to allow a little swelling. A cloth-boiled pudding takes on a characteristic skin and needs hanging to dry for a few hours before storing.
- KeepingRich boiled puddings of this type were often made ahead. This one contains milk and fresh apple, so it is not a long keeper: cool it, cover freshly and keep it cold, using it within a couple of weeks; reheat by boiling again for one to two hours before serving.
The "plum" in plum pudding means raisin — dried fruit and raisins alike were called plums in early modern English, and the name stuck long after prunes had left the recipe. The dish descends from plum pottage, a thick spiced broth of meat, dried fruit and breadcrumbs recorded in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and itself descended from earlier medieval pottages; it was served early in a feast rather than at the end. Over the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the meat dwindled to the suet, the pottage stiffened into a boiled pudding, and the whole thing migrated to the end of the meal. By the time Cassell's was compiled in the 1870s it had become firmly a Christmas dish, a fixture reinforced by Dickens and by the royal household's well-publicised observances. The listed cost of three shillings is a reminder of how much a household was committing: dried fruit, candied peel, five eggs and a glass of brandy made this an occasion pudding rather than a weeknight one.