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Brown Ginger Pudding
2 ounces bread raspings 1 teaspoon ground ginger 3 ounces butter 1 tablespoon Golden Syrup 2 ounces candied lemon peel 1/2 pint milk 1 ounce sugar Make the milk hot, and melt the butter and Golden Syrup in it, pouring over the bread raspings. Cover, and let them remain for half an hour. Now mix in thoroughly the ginger, sugar and candied lemon. Put the mixture in a well buttered mold, and steam for three hours. Serve sweet white sauce with the pudding.
A steamed breadcrumb pudding with no eggs in it, which means the texture depends entirely on the crumb soaking properly and the steam staying gentle. Everything here is straightforward once the old ingredient names are decoded.
- Bread raspingsRaspings are dried crusts rasped or grated to a coarse powder — in effect unseasoned dried breadcrumbs, not the soft fresh kind. Two ounces is roughly half a cup, and dry crumbs matter here because they absorb the hot milk and hold the pudding together.
- The half pint of milkThe measure is ambiguous: an imperial half pint is 10 fl oz, a US half pint 8 fl oz. Starting with 8 fl oz (1 cup) is the safer reading; the recipe gives no description of the finished consistency.
- Golden SyrupLyle's Golden Syrup is a pale cane inversion syrup, still sold in the green tin. Light corn syrup is thinner and much blander; if substituting, use a mild honey or a light molasses blend rather than dark treacle, which will overwhelm the ginger.
- Candied lemon peelThe period ingredient was whole candied caps of peel, sold to be cut up at home. Chop the modern diced peel finer still, so two ounces disperses through a small pudding instead of sinking in lumps.
- The soak is the hingeThe half hour covered with hot milk is not optional resting time — it is what hydrates the raspings so the pudding sets. Skip or shorten it and you get gritty crumb suspended in liquid.
- Steaming, in practiceButter a pudding basin of at least 1 1/2 pints and fill it no more than three-quarters, and cover tightly with pleated parchment and foil so condensation cannot run in. Stand it on a trivet in a covered pot with simmering water halfway up the sides and top the water up as it goes; the recipe's three hours should be at a bare simmer.
- Sweet white sauceThe book assumes you know it: about a cup of milk thickened with a tablespoon of cornstarch or flour, sweetened to taste and flavoured with vanilla or lemon.
- Yield and servingEnough for about four small portions.
Steamed crumb puddings like this one are thrift dishes that outlived their thrift — stale crusts dried, grated and kept in a jar were a standing resource in any kitchen that baked its own bread, and raspings turn up in coatings for cutlets as well as in sweets. Abram Lyle's refinery began selling Golden Syrup in tins in the 1880s, which places the recipe's idiom no earlier than that. Ginger and candied lemon peel were both cheap and both kept well. The pudding contains no suet, the standard binding fat for steamed puddings, and no eggs either.