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Plain Plum Pudding (Eggless)
3 teacups Five Roses flour 1 teacup milk 1 teacup molasses 1 teacup chopped suet 1 teacup raisins 2 teaspoons cream of tartar 1 teaspoon soda 1 teaspoon cinnamon 1 teaspoon cloves 1 teaspoon nutmeg.
Boil or steam 3 to 4 hours.
A frugal steamed pudding built on suet, molasses and raisins, with cream of tartar and soda standing in for both eggs and baking powder. It needs a basin, a lid and a long, steady simmer.
- The teacupA teacup in this period is smaller than a modern measuring cup — often reckoned at about 3/4 cup (6 fl oz), though some books treat it as a full cup. What matters is that you use the same vessel for every teacup measure, so the flour-to-liquid ratio holds.
- LeaveningTwo teaspoons cream of tartar plus one of soda is homemade baking powder, the standard substitute before commercial powders were universal. Sift it thoroughly through the flour, and note that the molasses is acidic too, so the batter will start working as soon as it is mixed — get it into the basin and into the water promptly.
- SuetBeef kidney suet, chopped fine or grated. Butchers will still sell it, and packaged shredded suet (including vegetarian versions) works. If substituting frozen butter, grate it on the coarse side of a box grater and keep it cold so it stays in pieces through mixing.
- MolassesUse fancy or cooking molasses, not blackstrap, which is far more bitter than what this book intended.
- The basinGrease a 2-quart pudding basin or heatproof bowl and fill it no more than two-thirds — this batter rises. Cover with pleated parchment and foil, tied down, so condensation cannot get in.
- Boiling versus steamingBoiling traditionally meant the pudding immersed — in a cloth, or in a basin with the water well up its sides — while a covered basin standing in water halfway up its side is properly steaming. Either way, hold the water at a bare simmer, not a rolling boil. Check the water level every hour and top up with boiling water; if the pot goes dry the pudding scorches and the vessel can crack.
- Doneness and yieldThree hours is enough for a basin this size; four gives a darker, closer crumb. A skewer to the centre should come out clean. Serves six to eight, turned out hot with hard sauce, custard or a lemon sauce.
- KeepingSteamed puddings improve after a day or two. Cool in the basin, re-cover, refrigerate, and re-steam for 45 minutes to an hour before serving.
The Five Roses Cook Book was published by the Lake of the Woods Milling Company, whose mills were at Keewatin and Kenora and whose head office and cookbook imprint were in Montreal, and distributed in enormous numbers to Canadian households in the early twentieth century, a flour advertisement in the form of a genuinely useful kitchen manual, much of it built from recipes sent in by customers. "Plum pudding" contains no plums: the word held its older English sense of raisin or dried fruit generally, a usage that survives in plum cake and sugar-plum. The "eggless" label marks this as an economy version of the Christmas pudding, leaning on cream of tartar and soda for lift instead of beaten eggs, and on suet for the richness that butter would otherwise supply. Boiled and steamed puddings were practical to make, since a covered basin in a pot of simmering water needed no oven and could sit at the back of the stove all afternoon.