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Crumb Fruit Pudding
Two cupfuls of crumbled stale bread, 2 of crumbled stale cake, mixed together. Pour over 1 cupful of milk and let stand an hour to soak.
Add 1 tablespoonful of melted butter, 1/2 cupful of molasses, 3/4 of a cupful each of seeded raisins and chopped citron, 1/2 teaspoonful of cinnamon, 1/4 teaspoonful each of cloves, allspice, mace and salt, 1 teaspoonful of soda dissolved in 1 tablespoonful of cold water. Mix well, turn into a buttered mold, and steam for three hours. Serve with a hard sauce beaten until very creamy, and flavored with vanilla.
A steamed pudding built from leftovers, closer to a plum pudding than to a bread pudding baked in the oven. The method is forgiving, but the steaming setup is what makes or breaks it.
- Amounts, in modern termsTwo cups stale bread crumbs and two cups crumbled stale cake, one cup milk, one tablespoon melted butter, half a cup molasses, three-quarters cup each raisins and chopped citron, and the listed spices. A cupful here is the standard 8 fl oz measure.
- The cake mattersCrumbled stale cake carries sugar and fat, so the pudding is sweeter and richer than the short ingredient list suggests. Plain pound cake, sponge or yellow cake works; frosted or heavily filled cake will throw off the balance.
- Soda, not baking powderOne teaspoon of soda dissolved in cold water is the only leavening. It is there to react with the molasses, which is acidic, and it should go in last and be steamed promptly, before the lift is spent.
- Steaming setupFill the buttered mold no more than two-thirds, cover it tightly with a lid or with buttered foil tied down, and stand it on a rack in a deep pot with boiling water reaching halfway up the sides. Keep the water at a bare simmer and top it up with boiling water as it drops; three hours at a rolling boil will cook the pot dry.
- Testing for donenessAfter three hours the pudding should be springy and a skewer through the center should come out clean. Let it stand ten minutes before unmolding so it firms up and releases cleanly.
- CitronCandied citron peel is still sold at holiday time and through baking suppliers. Candied orange or lemon peel is the usual substitute; chopped dried apricot or dates will do if you want the fruit without the bitterness.
- Hard sauceBeat about half a cup of softened butter with one to one and a half cups sifted confectioners' sugar and a teaspoon of vanilla until pale and creamy, then chill. It is meant to be cold against the hot pudding.
- Yield and keepingA one-and-a-half to two quart mold, serving eight. Steamed puddings keep several days wrapped and refrigerated, and reheat well by steaming for twenty to thirty minutes.
Steamed puddings of this kind were a common way of turning stale bread and cake into a company dessert, and books of economical cookery used them often: the spices, molasses and dried fruit are the plum-pudding vocabulary, applied to whatever the breadbox held. The technique long predates reliable home ovens, when a covered mold set in a pot over the fire was often more practical than baking, and it is generally said to have persisted well into the twentieth century. Citron, the candied peel of a thick-rinded citrus, is often described as a fixture of the American holiday pantry into the middle of the last century and is now largely confined to fruitcake season. Hard sauce is usually said to take its name from its firm chilled texture rather than from any spirit; brandy and rum were also used as flavorings alongside vanilla.