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Original Pudding (Reserve a portion of light)
Reserve a portion of light dough intended for breakfast. Set it in a cool place, and four hours before dinner, roll thin, without kneading. Sprinkle thickly over it, first, a layer of sliced citron, then a layer of seeded raisins. Roll up and lay on a buttered bread-pan till very light. Then either boil in a cloth, prepared by wetting first and then flouring (the pudding being allowed room for rising in this cloth), or set the pan in the stove and bake. In the latter case, after it becomes a light brown, it must be covered with a buttered paper.
Dough for French rolls or muffin bread is especially adapted to this kind of pudding.--Mrs. S. T.
This is a bread-dough pudding built from whatever yeast dough is already rising for breakfast, so the recipe assumes you have that dough and a working knowledge of how it behaves. The hinge is the second rise: the rolled log must be fully light before it meets heat, or it bakes or boils into a dense, sodden spiral.
- "Light dough"A yeast-raised white bread or roll dough that has already risen once. The recipe gives no quantity; a piece of about 1 to 1 1/2 lb is a workable modern amount. Any enriched dough will do, and the closing note about French rolls or muffin bread points to a dough with some butter, milk and sugar, which suits the sweet filling.
- Roll without kneadingThis matters more than it sounds. Knocking the dough back and rekneading develops the gluten and tightens the crumb; rolling the risen dough straight out keeps it open and tender. Handle it lightly and flour the board sparingly.
- CitronCandied citron, the thick-peeled citrus preserved in sugar syrup, still sold in tubs around the winter holidays. Slice it thin. Candied orange or lemon peel is the nearest substitute in flavour, though it is sweeter and softer.
- "Seeded raisins"Nineteenth-century muscat raisins came with seeds and had to be slit and picked. Modern raisins are seedless; use them as they are, about 1 cup to a pound of dough.
- "Till very light"The original's four hours is the whole run-up to dinner, covering the rise and the cooking, not the rise alone. For the rise itself expect 1 to 2 hours in a warm kitchen: the roll should look visibly puffed and a fingertip pressed into the side should leave a slow-filling dent.
- BakingThe recipe gives no temperature or time; a moderate oven of around 350F for 40 to 50 minutes suits a log of this size. The buttered paper the recipe calls for once the top browns is simply a shield; buttered parchment or loosely tented foil does the same job and prevents the crust setting hard before the centre cooks through.
- Boiling in a clothWet the cloth, wring it, and flour the inside surface heavily so the dough does not stick. Tie it loosely with a good hand's width of slack, as the recipe's own instruction to allow room for rising requires, and keep the water at a steady simmer -- roughly 1 1/2 to 2 hours -- topping up with boiling water so the pudding stays submerged. A skewer to the centre should come out clean and dry.
- ServingThe recipe specifies no accompaniment, but the pudding is barely sweetened beyond the fruit, and a sauce -- hard sauce, brandy or lemon sauce, or plain cream -- suits it. Best served warm.
Puddings made from a pinch of the morning's bread dough belong to a long English tradition that was carried to Virginia, and they are essentially a thrift dish dressed for the table: the dough is already made and paid for, so the only outlay is the fruit. Boiling in a floured cloth is the older method, standard from the seventeenth century onward, though by the 1870s baking it in a bread pan was offered as an equal alternative, which may reflect the cast-iron cookstove taking over from the open hearth and its perpetual pot of water. Candied citron, imported and expensive, is doing the same work here that it does in fruitcake, marking the dish as one for dinner rather than breakfast. Housekeeping in Old Virginia (1879) was compiled by Marion Cabell Tyree from contributions by named Virginia housekeepers, and the "Mrs. S. T." signature is characteristic: the book reads as a collection of what particular households actually did, which is why the instructions assume you already know what your own bread dough looks like when it is ready.