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Sunday Pudding
Take half a pound of raisins, and half a pound of currants, a quarter of a pound of suet chopped fine, a quarter of a pound of bread-crumbs, a table-spoonful of flour, half a glass of brandy, a small piece of lemon-peel chopped fine, three ounces of moist sugar, four beaten eggs, and a tea-cupful of milk. Mix all these ingredients well together, put into a pudding-mould, and boil for four hours. Probable cost, 1s. 6d.
A plain boiled suet pudding of the plum-pudding family, lighter on spice and dried fruit than a Christmas one. Nothing here is difficult, but the vessel and the water need attention.
- The hinge: keep the water boiling and topped upThe pudding must sit in simmering water for the whole four hours, with a lid on the pot and the level kept about two-thirds up the basin. Add boiling water from a kettle as it evaporates; cold water stops the cooking and gives a heavy, sodden centre.
- Pudding-mould means a basinA 1.5-litre (2.5-pint) heatproof pudding basin, well buttered, is the modern equivalent. Fill it no more than three-quarters full, cover with pleated buttered greaseproof and foil, and tie under the rim with string, leaving a loop as a handle.
- SuetBeef suet chopped fine from a lump of hard kidney fat is what is meant. Packet shredded suet, beef or vegetarian, works at the same weight of 4 oz (115 g).
- Moist sugarVictorian "moist sugar" is soft brown sugar, unrefined and damp. Light muscovado at 3 oz (85 g) is the closest thing on a modern shelf.
- Half a glass of brandyAn imprecise measure. A wineglass in Victorian recipe books was usually reckoned at about 2 fl oz, so half a glass is roughly 1 fl oz, about 2 tablespoons; more than that and the mixture is too slack.
- A tea-cupful of milkRead as about 5 fl oz (150 ml). Add it last and only as needed: the mixture should drop reluctantly from the spoon, not pour.
- Currants and raisinsBoth come clean and ready now, but check for stalks. If the raisins are very dry, a short soak in the brandy before mixing improves them.
- Yield and servingServes six to eight. Turn out onto a warm dish and serve with custard, brandy butter or a plain sweet white sauce. Leftovers slice and fry in butter the next day.
Cassell's gives this the workaday name of the household calendar rather than any regional origin. A pudding of this kind could be mixed on Saturday and set to boil while the cook was occupied elsewhere, which may have suited a day when the kitchen ran a large joint and a limited staff, though the rationale is a plausible guess rather than anything the book states. It is essentially a plum pudding stripped of its expense: no candied peel, no spice, no ale or stout, and a modest 1s. 6d. The costings that close many Cassell's entries were a selling point of the book, aimed at mistresses budgeting a weekly table, and they give some rough sense of the recipe's period. Boiled suet puddings of this shape were the everyday sweet of Victorian Britain, and the technique of a cloth or a basin lowered into a pot of water is far older than the book.