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Suet Pudding
One cup of molasses, one cup of milk, one cup of finely chopped suet, one cup of fruit (citron, raisins and currants), one teaspoon of soda, one teaspoon of cinnamon, one teaspoon of allspice, one teaspoon of cloves, one nutmeg grated, three scant cups of flour, one level teaspoon of salt. Mix fruit with flour to prevent sinking. Mix all thoroughly. Steam three hours.
— Miss Alma Dorwaldt
A classic steamed molasses-and-suet pudding of the kind that appeared in every American church and village cookbook around 1900. The method is sound; only the shopping and the equipment need translating.
- SuetBeef suet is the hard fat from around the kidneys, and a butcher will usually supply it on request. Grate or chop it fine while it is cold, discarding membrane; a food processor pulses it well if the fat is nearly frozen. Frozen shredded suet sold for baking works too.
- Soda, not baking powderThe single teaspoon of soda is there to react with the acid in the molasses, which is the only leavening in the pudding. Use the molasses called for rather than a light syrup, or the pudding will be dense and slightly soapy.
- MolassesUse unsulphured dark molasses, not blackstrap, which is bitter and stronger-tasting than what is likely intended here. One cup is about 12 oz by weight.
- CitronCandied citron peel is still sold at holiday season but has largely disappeared from ordinary shelves; candied orange or lemon peel is the closest substitute. Chop it small so it distributes.
- Whole nutmegOne grated nutmeg is roughly 2 to 3 teaspoons of ground nutmeg, which with the other teaspoon-quantities makes a heavily spiced pudding by modern taste. Halving the nutmeg is reasonable if you prefer restraint.
- The mould and the steamingThis makes roughly 1½ quarts of batter, so use a greased 2½- to 3-quart pudding basin or covered mould filled no more than two-thirds, or divide it between two smaller moulds. Cover tightly with foil or a tied cloth, and set it on a rack in a deep pot with boiling water reaching halfway up. Keep the water at a bare simmer and top it up with boiling water as it falls; three hours is right and the pudding is forgiving of a little longer.
- Flour"Three scant cups" means just under level cups, about 12 oz. The batter should be thick and droppable, not pourable.
- Yield and servingServes eight to ten. It was usually sent to table hot with a hard sauce of butter, sugar and a little spirit, or a warm vanilla or lemon sauce. It reheats well by re-steaming for 30 to 40 minutes and keeps, wrapped, for several days.
Steamed suet puddings came to American kitchens directly from the British tradition, where a boiled or steamed pudding was the ordinary way to get a sweet dish out of a hearth that had no oven. The pudding survived because it suited a household economy: suet was cheap and kept, molasses was cheaper than sugar, and dried fruit was a pantry staple rather than a luxury. Recipes of this shape — a cup each of molasses, milk, suet and fruit, spiced with the four warm spices and steamed for three hours — appear under names like Poor Man's Pudding, Christmas Pudding and simply Suet Pudding in American community cookbooks of the period, differing mainly in the fruit. The attribution to a named contributor is typical of the genre.