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Steamed Puddings
Steamed Apple Pudding, or Apple Dumpling Early in the morning set a sponge of 1 cup lukewarm skim milk 1/2 cake compressed yeast 2 1/2 cups pastry flour Dissolve the yeast in the milk, add the flour, and beat thoroughly. When this sponge is light, add the following to make a dough: 1/4 cup oil 1/2 teaspoon salt 1 teaspoon sugar 1 cup pastry flour When the dough is light, roll it out a little less then one-fourth inch thick. Cover the dough with sliced apples, and sprinkle brown sugar and a few grains of salt over the apples. Roll up into a roll. Put into a pudding pan or a large bread tin. Allow to rise for perhaps one-half hour in a warm place. Then steam three hours. Serve hot, with vanilla sauce.
In their season fresh blueberries, raspberries, blackberries, or cranberries may be used in place of the apples.
A yeast-raised roll of dough filled with fruit and steamed rather than baked, which gives a soft, bready pudding instead of a crisp crust. The dough is worked in two stages, and both need to be genuinely light before you move on.
- Half a cake of yeastCompressed yeast was sold in cakes of varying size; the common small cake of this period was around 0.6 oz, so half a cake is roughly 1/4 to 1/3 oz fresh yeast, or about 1 teaspoon of active dry or instant yeast.
- Pastry flourSoft, low-protein flour. All-purpose works, but the pudding will be chewier; substituting a couple of tablespoons of cornstarch for the same amount of flour in each measure brings it closer.
- Set up the steamer properlyThe pan goes on a rack above simmering water in a covered pot, not in the water. Cover the pudding pan loosely with foil or a cloth so condensation does not soak the top, and top up the water from a boiling kettle every hour.
- Three hours is not a misprintSteam is only 212F, and the roll is dense with fruit. Keep the water at a steady simmer for the full time; a hard boil will not cook it faster and only empties the pot.
- Roll thin, fill thinThe dough goes out to a little under 1/4 inch. Slice the apples thin and keep a single layer, or the centre stays gummy and the roll splits as it rises.
- The second riseHalf an hour in a warm place is a guide, not a rule. The roll should look visibly puffed and feel airy before it goes over the water.
- Oil for shorteningThe recipe specifies only 'oil'; a neutral oil works. This is an egg-free dough shortened without butter or suet, so butter is not a like-for-like swap in flavour or texture, though it will work.
- Vanilla sauceUsually a thin cornstarch-thickened milk sauce, sweetened and flavoured with vanilla, served warm and poured over; a soft custard or pouring cream does the same job.
- YieldOne large loaf-tin pudding, six to eight servings. Serve hot; steamed yeast dough turns leaden once cold, though slices reheat well in the steamer.