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Tadcaster Pudding
Shred eight ounces of suet very finely, and mix it with a pound of flour; or, if preferred, rub six ounces of butter or good beef dripping into a pound of flour. Add a pinch of salt, two heaped tea spoonfuls of baking-powder, four ounces of well-washed currants, four ounces of chopped and stoned raisins, two ounces of moist sugar, and half a nutmeg, grated. Mix the dry ingredients together thoroughly. Dissolve a dessert-spoonful of treacle in about three-quarters of a pint of milk, and stir this into the pudding to make a stiff batter. Pour the mixture into a thickly-buttered baking-dish, and let it be from two to three inches in thickness. Bake in a moderate oven. When the pudding is done enough, let it stand for a couple of minutes, then turn it out on a hot dish. Time to bake, about an hour and a half. Probable cost, 1s. 1d. Sufficient for six persons.
A plain baked suet pudding of the north-country type — no basin, no steaming, just a buttered dish and a slow-ish oven. The batter should be stiff enough to need spreading, not pouring.
- Oven temperature"A moderate oven" here means 350F (180C, gas 4). At an hour and a half the surface will be well browned; if it colours too fast in the first half hour, drop to 325F rather than covering it, which softens the crust that makes this pudding worth turning out.
- SuetShredded beef suet is sold in the UK as ready-shredded suet, fresh or vegetarian; in North America ask a butcher for kidney fat and grate it frozen. The butter or dripping alternative given in the recipe works perfectly well and is easier — rub it in cold, as for pastry.
- Moist sugarVictorian "moist sugar" is unrefined soft brown sugar, still damp with molasses. Light or dark muscovado is the closest thing; ordinary granulated white will give a drier, blander pudding.
- TreacleIn Victorian recipes of this kind treacle normally means the dark sort: British black treacle, dark and faintly burnt, rather than golden syrup, which is merely sweet. Dark molasses is the nearest substitute; blackstrap is stronger and more bitter. One dessertspoonful is about 2 teaspoons, and it is there for colour and depth rather than sweetness.
- NutmegHalf a grated nutmeg is roughly a rounded teaspoon, which is assertive by modern standards but correct for the period. Grate it fresh; pre-ground nutmeg at that quantity turns dusty.
- Liquid and consistencyThree-quarters of a pint is an imperial pint measure — about 15 fl oz, or 425 ml. Add it gradually: currants and raisins vary in dryness, and you want a batter stiff enough to hold a spoon mark.
- The dishTwo to three inches deep is the instruction that matters. A shallow dish gives a dry, cakey slab; a deep one leaves the centre raw at ninety minutes. A 2-quart / 2-litre pie or gratin dish, thickly buttered, is about right, and butter the sides properly or it will not turn out cleanly.
- Turning outThe two-minute rest lets the pudding pull away from the dish and firm at the edges; don't leave it much longer, or steam condenses underneath and the base goes soggy.
- YieldSix servings, as stated. Serve hot with custard, cream, or a plain sweet white sauce -- this is a pudding that expects something poured over it.
Tadcaster is a small brewing town in Yorkshire, and this pudding belongs to the broad family of English baked suet puddings that stand between the boiled plum pudding of Christmas and a plain currant cake — cheap, filling, and built from things that keep in a store cupboard. The name is likely a regional label of the sort Victorian cookery books collected freely rather than any documented local invention. The baking powder suggests a date somewhere after the middle of the century, once commercial baking powders had begun to displace the older reliance on eggs, long beating, or hartshorn. The costing of 1s. 1d. — thirteen pence — for six people points the same way: a book written for readers running a household to a weekly budget.