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Plum Pudding (Eggs the yolks and whites)
8 eggs (the yolks and whites beaten very light). 1 pint of suet chopped fine. 1 pint of sweet milk. 1½ pint stoned raisins, rubbed in flour. 1 quart of bread crumbs rubbed till very fine. Half pint citron sliced thin. 1 teacup of light brown sugar.
Grease and flour your mould, pour your pudding in, boil two hours, and eat with rich boiled sauce, made of sugar, butter, wine, and nutmeg.--Mrs. B. C. C.
Recipe for a simpler Plum Pudding. 3 cupfuls flour. 1 cupful raisins. 1 cupful brown sugar. 1 cupful buttermilk. 1/2 cup molasses. 1 cup of suet, or half a cup of butter. 2 eggs. 1 teaspoonful soda. Boil and eat with sauce.--Mrs. E. B.
Two versions of the same dish: a rich crumb-and-suet pudding boiled in a mould, and a plainer flour pudding leavened with soda. Both assume you know how a boiled pudding works, so the essentials are worth spelling out.
- Seal the mould properlyThis is the hinge. A greased and floured mould must be covered tightly — buttered parchment and foil tied down, or a clamped lid — or water gets in and the pudding turns to sludge. Set it on a rack in a pot, water reaching halfway up the mould, lid on, and top up with boiling water as it evaporates so the pot never runs dry.},
- Two hours is shortTwo hours is on the short side -- at a bare simmer a pudding of this quantity may come out only just set in the middle. Larger suet puddings are often given three to four hours, and it is done when a skewer comes out clean and hot.
- Pints are volume, not weightA pint of chopped suet is about 2 cups, roughly 8 oz; a quart of fine breadcrumbs is 4 cups, which may weigh anywhere from about 8 oz if the crumbs are soft to considerably more if the loaf was dry. A teacup is usually reckoned at about 3/4 cup, though the book does not define it. The first pudding contains no flour at all beyond what dusts the fruit — the crumbs do all the binding.
- SuetBeef suet from the kidney, asked for at a butcher counter, or packaged shredded suet. Grate it frozen so it stays in flakes rather than smearing. The second recipe's half cup of butter is an accepted substitute and gives a slightly heavier crumb.
- CitronCandied citron peel, sold in blocks and now easiest to find at holiday time. Half a pint sliced thin is roughly 4 to 6 oz; mixed candied peel works if citron is unavailable.
- Flouring the raisinsRubbing the fruit in flour keeps it suspended rather than sinking to the bottom of the mould. It still matters, and it also stops the raisins clumping.
- No spice, and no brandy in the batterUnlike English Christmas puddings, neither of these is spiced or fortified — the nutmeg and wine live entirely in the sauce. Add spice if you want it, but the original flavour is milk, suet and fruit.
- The boiled sauceSugar, butter, wine and nutmeg beaten warm over low heat, never boiled hard or the butter separates. Figure about 1/2 cup butter, 1 cup sugar, 1/2 cup sherry or Madeira and a good grating of nutmeg.
- YieldThe first pudding measures out to something near a gallon of mixture, so it wants a mould of at least 3 to 4 quarts and will feed a large table; it is very rich and slices thin. The second is smaller, and both reheat well by steaming again for half an hour.
Boiled puddings tied in a cloth or turned out of a tin mould were everyday Anglo-American cookery long before they were holiday food, and Virginia kitchens inherited the form directly from England, where a pudding boiled alongside the meat used one fire for two dishes. "Plum" in the name is older than the raisins: in early modern English it meant dried fruit generally, and by the eighteenth century a plum pudding contained currants and raisins and no plums at all. What is telling here is the pairing — Mrs. B. C. C.'s crumb-and-citron version is a company dish, expensive in eggs and candied peel, while Mrs. E. B.'s "simpler" pudding leans on flour, buttermilk, molasses and soda, all cheap staples. Housekeeping in Old Virginia (1878), compiled by Marion Cabell Tyree, drew on contributions from Virginia housewives identified only by their initials, and this side-by-side grand and thrifty version of one dish is a record of households cooking at more than one budget.