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Whole Wheat Pudding
2 cups whole wheat meal 1/2 teaspoon soda 1/2 teaspoon salt 1 cup milk 1/2 cup molasses 1 cup stoned dates Sift soda and salt with the meal, add dates till they are thoroughly floured; add milk and molasses. This will make a soft batter but the dry flour absorbs a great deal of the moisture. Steam three hours in a closed mould. Serve with any plain pudding sauce or whipped cream.
If sour milk is used add one level teaspoon of soda. Raisins, figs, prunes or chopped apples make a pleasant variety
A plain steamed brown pudding of the Boston brown bread family, leavened only by the reaction between soda and molasses. The one thing to get right is the steam: the mould must be sealed and the water must never stop simmering, or the pudding sinks and turns gummy at the base.
- Whole wheat mealThis is coarse whole wheat flour, close to what was sold as graham flour. Ordinary stone-ground whole wheat flour works; if you use fine modern whole wheat, expect slightly less liquid absorption and a denser crumb.
- Stoned datesPitted dates. Check them anyway, since even packaged pitted dates hide stones. Chop them roughly and toss in the dry meal as directed, which keeps them from sinking into one layer.
- Soda and molassesThe molasses supplies the acid that activates the soda. With sweet milk, keep the half teaspoon; with sour milk the recipe calls for one level teaspoon, though whether that is in addition to or in place of the half is not made clear.
- Sour milkButtermilk is the practical substitute, or a cup of milk with a tablespoon of lemon juice or vinegar left to stand ten minutes.
- The mouldA pudding basin, coffee tin or lidded mould of about two quarts, well buttered and filled no more than two-thirds. "Closed" means genuinely sealed: lid clamped, or a round of buttered parchment then foil tied down with string, so condensation cannot drip in.
- Steaming setupStand the mould on a rack or folded cloth in a deep pot, add boiling water to come halfway up the sides, cover, and hold at a bare simmer. Top up with boiling water as it evaporates; three hours will take a good deal.
- DonenessAfter three hours a skewer into the centre should come out clean and the pudding should have pulled slightly from the sides. Let it stand ten minutes before turning out, or it will break.
- Yield and servingServes six to eight in modest slices. A plain pudding sauce of the period was usually a simple sweet sauce, often thickened with cornstarch; the pudding also reheats well in the steamer the next day.
Steamed puddings like this one sit halfway between dessert and bread, and the ingredient list is essentially Boston brown bread with fruit added: whole meal, molasses, soda, sour milk, hours of moist heat. Long steaming is often said to have been a practical answer to wood and coal ranges whose oven temperatures were unreliable, and a pudding mould in a pot of simmering water needed only attention to the water level. The rise of coarser meals sold as the wholesome alternative to cheap white flour is generally traced to the spread of the roller mills, though the connection is more received narrative than documented fact. Dates, figs and prunes were imported dried fruits that had become inexpensive and widely stocked by the turn of the century, which is why the recipe can treat them as interchangeable.