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English Plum Pudding II
6 ozs. flour 6 ozs. stale bread crumbs 3/4 lb. raisins, seeded and cut in pieces 3/4 lb. currants 3/4 lb. suet, finely chopped 10 ozs. sugar 1 cup molasses 3 ozs. candied orange peel, finely cut 1 teaspoon grated nutmeg 1 teaspoon mace 6 eggs, well beaten 2 teaspoons salt Mix ingredients in order given, turn into a thickly floured square of unbleached cotton cloth. Tie securely, leaving some space to allow the pudding to swell, and plunge into a kettle of boiling water. Cook five hours, allowing pudding to be immersed in water during the entire cooking. Serve with Hard and Liquid Sauce.
Hard Sauce. Cream one-third cup butter; add gradually one cup brown sugar and two tablespoons brandy, drop by drop. Force through a pastry bag with rose tube, and garnish with green leaves and candied cherries. Liquid Sauce. Mix one-half cup sugar, one-half tablespoon corn-starch, and a few grains salt. Add gradually, while stirring constantly, one cup boiling water, and boil five minutes. Remove from fire, add one tablespoon lemon juice and two tablespoons brandy; then color with fruit red.
A cloth-boiled plum pudding of the older sort, with no baking dish and no steamer basket. The whole success of it lies in the cloth and in keeping the water at a steady boil for the full five hours.
- Weights into cups6 oz flour is about 1 1/3 to 1 1/2 cups; 6 oz stale crumbs is roughly 3 cups loosely packed; 10 oz sugar is about 1 1/4 to 1 1/2 cups. The fruit and suet are best left as weights and put on a scale.
- The cloth is the hingeScald a square of undyed cotton or unbleached muslin, wring it out, and flour the damp side heavily. That wet-and-floured surface sets into a skin that keeps water out; a dry cloth lets the pudding waterlog.
- Water level and boilKeep the pudding fully covered with boiling water for all five hours and top up from a kettle of already-boiling water. Cold water added mid-cook drops the temperature and the pudding turns heavy in the middle.
- SuetAsk a butcher for beef kidney suet and chop or grate it cold; the packaged shredded suet sold for baking works as well. Butter can be substituted but the crumb will be shorter and less springy.
- Currants and raisins"Currants" here means the small dried Zante grape, not fresh berries and not the fresh currant. Seeded raisins simply means the seeds removed, which is standard now.
- SaltTwo teaspoons may read high, though it is spread through a very large pudding; reduce to one if you prefer.
- Fruit redA commercial red fruit coloring of the period. Any red food coloring does the same job, and the sauce is perfectly good uncolored.
- Yield and reheatingThe listed ingredients add up to something over five pounds of raw mixture, so this is a large pudding, served in the small wedges these rich puddings call for. It keeps wrapped in a cool place and is reheated by boiling in the cloth again for about an hour.
- SaucesThe hard sauce must stay cold to hold the piped shape; refrigerate it until service. The liquid sauce thickens on a bare half tablespoon of cornstarch, so it stays pourable rather than setting.