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Suet Pudding
One-half cup of milk, one-half cup of chopped suet, one-half cup of molasses, two cups of fruit and nuts chopped together, one cup of flour, pinch of salt, one small teaspoon of soda dissolved in warm water. Steam three hours. Any sort of fruit and nuts may be used.- Eva Snaith Barnes.
A small, dense steamed pudding of the sort that once ended a winter dinner. The proportions are terse but workable; the main things to settle are what "fruit" means, what vessel to steam it in, and how full to fill it.
- The hinge: a tight, half-full moldThe hinge: a tight, two-thirds-full mold -- Steamed puddings rise on the soda alone and need room, so grease a mold or pudding basin of at least a quart and a half -- the batter runs to something over four cups -- and fill it no more than two-thirds. Cover with greased parchment and foil tied down firmly, or the lid clipped on; water getting in is what ruins these puddings.
- SuetBeef suet, the hard fat from around the kidneys, is still sold by butchers and by mail. It should be finely chopped or grated while cold, and it must stay in visible flecks rather than melting into the batter. Shredded packaged suet works; vegetable shortening gives a softer, less springy crumb.
- "Two cups of fruit and nuts"Here this almost certainly means dried fruit -- raisins, currants, chopped dates or figs -- with walnuts or pecans. Fresh fruit releases too much water for a batter with only one cup of flour.
- Soda and molassesThe soda is there to react with the acid in the molasses, which is why there is no baking powder. Dissolve it in a tablespoon or two of warm water and stir it in last, then get the pudding into the steam promptly. Use unsulphured molasses, not blackstrap, which is bitter in this quantity.
- Setting up the steamerStand the mold on a rack or a folded towel in a deep pot, add boiling water to come halfway up the sides, cover, and keep it at a bare simmer. Top up with boiling water as it evaporates -- three hours will take at least one refill.
- TimingThree hours is what the recipe gives for the pudding whole. Divided among individual cups or ramekins it will be done sooner, perhaps about an hour; test with a skewer, which should come out clean, and the pudding should spring back.
- Yield and servingServes six modestly. Unmold hot and serve with hard sauce, a foamy egg sauce, or lightly sweetened cream; steamed puddings turn leaden as they cool, though they reheat well in the steamer.
Suet puddings are the direct descendants of the English boiled pudding, which moved from a cloth tied around the batter to the metal mold or basin over the course of the nineteenth century. American versions leaned on molasses rather than sugar, partly from habit and partly from price, and the molasses-and-soda pairing did the leavening work in countless "Indian" and steamed puddings before baking powder became universal. The attribution to Eva Snaith Barnes marks this as a reader contribution, which is why the instructions assume you already know how to rig a steamer and how long to keep the water boiling. The closing line, that any sort of fruit and nuts may be used, is the practical heart of it: this was a dessert for whatever the pantry held in February.