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Plum Pudding, with Apples
Chop four ounces of apples very small; mix with them four ounces of currants cleaned and dried, two ounces of raisins stoned and chopped, four ounces of the crumb of bread finely grated, a heaped table-spoonful of loaf sugar, and half an ounce of candied peel. Stir into the mixture one ounce and a half of clarified butter and four well-beaten eggs. Pour the pudding into a buttered mould, or tie it in a cloth, and boil until it is done enough. This pudding is better if mixed the day before it is wanted. Time to boil, two hours. Probable cost, 9d. Sufficient for four persons.
A light, suetless boiled pudding held together by breadcrumbs and egg rather than flour. The one thing that matters is water management: the pan must stay at a steady boil and be topped up from a kettle, never from the cold tap.
- Mould and clothA buttered mould needs a lid or a tied-on layer of buttered paper and foil, then a boil in water reaching two-thirds up the sides. A cloth requires flouring after buttering so the surface sets into a skin; either way the pudding must be lifted clear of the pan floor on a trivet or folded cloth.
- "Until it is done enough"Two hours' boiling is the figure the recipe gives. A skewer into the centre should come out clean and hot to the touch; the pudding will feel firm and springy rather than liquid when pressed.
- Loaf sugarSugar sold in a hard cone, broken and crushed for use. Ordinary granulated or caster sugar is the direct replacement. A heaped tablespoon is roughly 25 g, which makes this a barely sweet pudding by modern standards.
- Clarified butterButter melted and the milk solids separated off; it keeps better than fresh butter, which may be part of why it was specified. An ounce and a half of melted unsalted butter, cooled slightly, does much the same job here.
- Candied peelHalf an ounce is about a tablespoon, chopped fine. Buy peel in whole caps or slices rather than the tubbed diced kind, which is largely sugar and glucose syrup.
- BreadcrumbsGrated crumb from a stale, open-textured white loaf, not dried or packaged crumbs, which are too hard and absorbent. Four ounces is about two cups loosely packed.
- Resting overnightThe instruction to mix a day ahead is not just convenience: the crumbs swell in the egg and apple juice, and the pudding holds together far better for it. Refrigerate it covered, since the mixture contains raw egg.
- Seasoning and servingUnusually for a plum pudding, no spice or spirit is specified, so the apple carries the flavour. Serves four, warm, with a sweetened cream, brandy butter or a thin custard.
The "plums" in plum pudding are dried fruit rather than fresh plums, an older English usage in which raisins and currants were plums generally; the name outlived the sense. Cassell's arranges many variations under the one heading, and this is the thrifty end of the range: no suet, no flour, no brandy, with chopped apple bulking out a small amount of expensive dried fruit and candied peel. The stated cost of ninepence for four people places it among the everyday puddings a household might boil alongside the dinner rather than the great Christmas pudding steamed for many hours and kept for months. Boiling in a floured cloth was the older method and boiling in a buttered mould the later one, and cookery books of this period commonly offer both.