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Plum Pudding, Family
Beat four eggs thoroughly. Mix with them half a pint of new milk and a tea-spoonful of salt. Then stir in half a pound of beef suet finely shredded, a pound of raisins stoned and chopped, four ounces of currants picked and dried, four ounces of brown sugar, a grated nutmeg, and an ounce of candied peel cut into strips. Stir these ingredients well together, and pour in another half-pint of milk; then add equal quantities of grated crumb-of-bread and flour, to make a stiff paste. Half an ounce of almonds blanched and chopped small, a little more candied peel, and a few more currants, may be added if liked, but if the pudding is too rich it will not be so likely to turn out properly. It may be boiled either in a cloth or in a mould. In a cloth it will be more quickly cooked; it will look better if boiled in a mould. A glassful of brandy and a dessert-spoonful of noyeau stirred into the sauce greatly improves this pudding. Time to boil, four to five hours. Probable cost, 2s. Sufficient for six or seven persons.
A plain boiled plum pudding of the everyday sort — no eggs beyond the four, no leavening, and no brandy in the batter. The technique matters more than the list.
- Imperial measuresA pint here is the imperial 20 fl oz, so each half-pint of milk is about 1¼ US cups, a pint of milk in total. The "glassful" of brandy for the sauce is loosely a wine glass, roughly 2 fl oz.
- The flour and crumbs are unspecifiedThe recipe says only "equal quantities" enough to make a stiff paste; it gives no weight. Perhaps 6 oz each of flour and fresh breadcrumbs for this quantity of fruit and liquid, but add gradually and stop when the mixture is a stiff paste, as the recipe directs.
- New milkFresh whole milk, unskimmed and unsoured. Ordinary whole milk is the equivalent.
- SuetHalf a pound of beef suet, shredded fine and dredged in a little of the flour so it does not clump. Packet shredded suet works directly; vegetarian suet gives a lighter, slightly drier crumb.
- Boiling in a clothScald the cloth, wring it, flour the inside well, and tie it loosely enough to let the pudding swell. The pudding goes into water already at a rolling boil and must never stop boiling — top up with boiling water only, since cold water halts the cooking and makes a heavy, sodden centre.
- Boiling in a mouldGrease the basin, cover with pleated parchment and foil or a tied cloth, and stand it on a trivet in water reaching two-thirds up the sides. The recipe says the cloth cooks faster, so a basin will likely want the longer end of the stated four to five hours, though the recipe does not break the time down.
- NoyeauAn almond-flavoured cordial, historically made from stone-fruit kernels and now largely gone from shops. Crème de noyaux or amaretto stands in for the flavour in the sauce.
- Candied peel and raisinsNineteenth-century raisins came with seeds, hence "stoned and chopped"; modern seedless raisins need only a rough chop. Buy peel in whole caps rather than diced tubs if you want the strips the recipe asks for.
- YieldSix or seven servings, as stated.
"Plum" in a pudding name has meant raisin since at least the seventeenth century, long after fresh plums dropped out of the dish; the ancestor is a medieval spiced pottage of meat, dried fruit and breadcrumbs, a soupy dish that shed the meat but kept the suet — the pudding cloth came later, an early modern development. The recipe is marked "Family", and the aside that a pudding overloaded with almonds and peel "will not be so likely to turn out properly" is a practical warning as much as an economical one — too much fat and fruit and the crumb has nothing to hold it together when the cloth comes off. The costing at two shillings and the suggestion that brandy and noyeau go into the sauce rather than the batter suggest, though a price and a sauce can only suggest so much, a Sunday pudding for a middle-class household, with the expensive flavourings reserved for the part everyone tastes.