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French Fruit Pudding
1 cup finely chopped suet 1 cup molasses 1 cup sour milk 1 1/2 teaspoons soda 1 teaspoon cinnamon 1/2 teaspoon clove 1/2 teaspoon salt 1 1/4 cups raisins, seeded and chopped 3/4 cup currants 2 3/4 cups flour Mrs. Carrie M. Dearborn Add molasses and sour milk to suet; add two cups flour mixed and sifted with soda, salt, and spices; add fruit mixed with remaining flour. Turn into buttered mould, cover, and steam four hours. Serve with Sterling Sauce. Fig Pudding I 3 oz. beef suet 1/2 lb. figs, finely chopped 2 1/3 cups stale bread crumbs 1/2 cup milk 2 eggs 1 cup sugar 3/4 teaspoon salt Chop suet, and work with the hands until creamy, then add figs. Soak bread crumbs in milk, add eggs well beaten, sugar, and salt. Combine mixtures, turn into a buttered mould, steam three hours. Serve with Yellow Sauce I or II.
A plain steamed suet pudding of the late-Victorian New England type, leavened by molasses and soda rather than eggs. Nothing about it is difficult, but the four-hour steam is not negotiable — the suet needs that long at a gentle temperature to melt out and leave the crumb light.
- SuetBeef suet, the hard fat from around the kidneys, is what makes the texture; ask a butcher, as it is not always stocked. One cup finely chopped is roughly 4 to 5 oz, depending on how loosely it packs. Packaged shredded suet works, and frozen butter grated on the coarse side of a box grater is a common substitute, though it gives a denser, richer result.
- Sour milkThis means naturally soured raw milk, not spoiled pasteurised milk. Use buttermilk, or stir 1 tablespoon of lemon juice or vinegar into a cup of whole milk and let it stand ten minutes. The acid is there to react with the soda, so do not substitute sweet milk.
- Soda and molassesSaleratus-era baking is chemically balanced between the acid in the sour milk and molasses and the 1 1/2 teaspoons soda. Unsulphured dark molasses is the closest choice; blackstrap will be harsh and can leave a soapy note if the soda is not fully neutralised. Mix and get it into the mould promptly.
- The mouldThe recipe gives no size; the mixture comes to roughly two quarts, so use a mould of about three quarts, or divide between two smaller ones, buttered well and filled no more than two-thirds. Cover tightly — a lid, or buttered parchment and foil tied down — so condensation cannot drip in and streak the pudding.
- SteamingSet the covered mould on a rack in a deep pot, add boiling water to come halfway up the sides, and keep it at a bare simmer for four hours, topping up with boiling water as it drops. A hard boil will jostle the mould and force water past the cover. Done when a skewer comes out clean and the pudding has shrunk slightly from the sides.
- FruitSeeded raisins means the seeds have been removed; ordinary seedless raisins need only chopping. Dried currants are the small Zante grapes, not fresh redcurrants. Tossing the fruit with the last of the flour keeps it suspended rather than sunk.
- Sterling SauceSterling Sauce is given elsewhere in the book; it belongs to the creamed-butter-and-sugar family of pudding sauces served cold against the hot pudding. Any hard sauce or a warm vanilla custard will do.
- Yield and keepingServes eight to ten. Like all suet puddings it reheats well: re-steam for 45 minutes to an hour, or slice and warm covered.