Home › The Lemon › Boiled Lemon Pudding
Boiled Lemon Pudding
Beat together one-fourth pound of butter, one-half pound of sugar, the grated rind of two lemons, and two tablespoons of flour, with a pinch of salt. In a separate basin stir one-half pound of bread-crumbs, with the juice of the lemon, and four eggs well beaten (previously), then add to the prepared batter. Tie securely in a well-dredged pudding-cloth (leaving room for swelling) and boil three hours. Serve with hard sauce.
A classic English boiled pudding, closer to a lemon-scented bread-and-butter batter than to a cake. Everything hinges on keeping the water at a steady boil for the full three hours without letting it drop below the level of the pudding.
- Weights in modern termsOne-fourth pound of butter is 4 oz (113 g, one US stick); one-half pound of sugar is about 1 cup plus 2 tablespoons (226 g). Half a pound of breadcrumbs is a large amount — roughly 4 to 5 cups of soft fresh crumbs, or about 2 cups if you use dried. The original does not say which; fresh soft crumbs from a day-old loaf give a more tender result.
- How much lemon juiceThe rinds of two lemons are specified but the juice of only "the lemon." Read it as the juice of both — about 5 tablespoons — which balances the sugar. Scrub the fruit before grating, since modern supermarket lemons are usually waxed.
- Pudding cloth, or a basinA dredged cloth means a scalded square of close-woven cotton wrung out, spread flat and dusted generously with flour, which sets into a skin and keeps water out. Tie it with kitchen string, leaving a good inch of slack for swelling. A buttered 1.5-quart pudding basin covered with pleated parchment and foil, tied under the rim, is an easier modern substitute.
- Boiling versus steamingA cloth pudding goes into fast-boiling water that covers it entirely; a basin pudding sits on a trivet or folded cloth in a covered pot with water halfway up its sides. Either way, top up with boiling — never cold — water as it evaporates, or the pudding stops cooking and turns dense.
- Three hours is not negotiableThree hours -- There is no leavening here beyond the beaten eggs, and the crumbs need long boiling to swell and set, so the full time is best observed. A skewer into the centre should come out clean; underdone, it may collapse when turned out.
- Turning outLet the pudding stand five minutes off the heat before unwrapping, then invert onto a warm plate in one movement. Cloth puddings are peeled back from the tied end downwards.
- Hard sauceNot a cooked sauce: cream 4 oz butter with about 1 cup sifted confectioners' sugar and flavour with brandy, sherry or more lemon, then chill until firm. It is meant to melt over the hot pudding at the table.
- YieldServes six to eight. It reheats well — steam slices for 15 minutes, or microwave briefly with a spoonful of sauce.
Boiled puddings tied in a floured cloth are one of the oldest continuous traditions in English cookery, generally traced to the seventeenth century, when the pudding cloth freed cooks from stuffing batters into animal guts and let a pudding share the pot with the meat. By the nineteenth century the form had split into a hundred variants distinguished mainly by their flavouring, and lemon was among them: the rind carried perfume that survived long boiling, and the juice cut the richness of butter, eggs and sugar. Hard sauce, brandied butter beaten stiff with sugar, was a common accompaniment to boiled puddings of the era, the same sauce still served with Christmas pudding.