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Syrup Sponge
¼ pound Five Roses flour ¼ teaspoon ginger ¼ teaspoon baking soda 2 ounces suet ¼ teacup syrup 1 teacup milk 1 egg.
Steam 1½ hours, and turn out on a plate. Sprinkle with sugar and pour melted syrup around it.
A plain steamed suet sponge of the sort that filled out a winter dinner. The method is assumed rather than described, so the practical detail is in the measures and the steaming.
- Weights to cupsA quarter pound of flour is about 1 cup, scooped and levelled. Two ounces of suet is roughly a scant ½ cup of loosely packed shredded beef suet; packaged shredded suet is the closest match, and frozen butter grated on the coarse side is a rough substitute.
- The teacupA teacup in Canadian and British books of this period is usually reckoned at about 6 fluid ounces rather than the 8-ounce standard cup, though usage varies. On that reading the milk is about ¾ cup and the syrup a scant 3 tablespoons.
- Which syrupIn a Canadian kitchen of this period this most likely means golden syrup, corn syrup or light molasses; maple is less likely to be what is meant, since it is usually named. Golden syrup suits the pudding; molasses will darken and sharpen it.
- Soda and no acidThe quarter teaspoon of baking soda relies on the syrup and milk for a little acidity, which is thin support. If the pudding rises poorly, a teaspoon of baking powder in place of the soda is the usual modern substitution.
- The vesselButter a 1-quart pudding basin or heatproof bowl generously, fill no more than two-thirds, and cover with pleated parchment and foil tied down. The pleat gives the sponge room to climb without lifting the cover.
- SteamingSet the basin on a trivet or folded cloth in a deep pan, add boiling water to halfway up the sides, and keep it at a bare simmer with the lid on for the full 1½ hours. Top up with boiling water as it evaporates; letting the pan run dry will scorch the base and stop the pudding cooking.
- Turning outRest five minutes before inverting, or the hot sponge tears. Warm the syrup for the sauce rather than boiling it, since boiled syrup sets hard as it cools on the plate.
- YieldServes four modestly, five at a stretch. Leftovers re-steam well for 15 minutes; a microwave will do but toughens the crumb.
The Five Roses Cook Book was issued by the Lake of the Woods Milling Company to sell its flour to Canadian households, and it leans on the dishes a farm or town kitchen made weekly rather than on anything showy. Steamed suet puddings were exactly that: they used beef fat that was cheap or came free with the butcher's order, they cooked on the back of a range without occupying oven space, and they turned a cup of flour into a hot dessert for a family. By the 1910s the basin and the steamer had largely replaced the floured cloth tied round a pudding and dropped into the pot. Syrup as both sweetener and sauce marks it as a thrift recipe, sweet enough to count as pudding without touching the sugar barrel much.