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Candied Fruit Pudding
1/4 pound candied fruit 1/4 pound of bread crumbs 2 ounces of flour 1/2 pint milk 2 ounces butter Any kind of candied fruit that is getting a little damp to use as dessert will do for this pudding; if it is large, it should be shredded, but if cherries are used, they may be cut in half. Mix the flour with the bread crumbs and the candied fruit. Make the milk hot, and melt the butter in it, and pour it over the bread crumbs, etc. Have ready a buttered mold, and pour in the mixture, and steam for three hours. One of the wine sauces or plain sweet sauce may be served with this pudding. Or it may be served with butter, and cream and sugar.
A plain steamed pudding of the English type, held together by breadcrumbs rather than eggs, and sweetened only by the fruit itself. The quantities are small and the method is forgiving; the one thing to get right is the steam.
- The measurements in cupsA quarter pound of breadcrumbs is roughly 2 cups of fresh soft crumbs, or about 1 cup if dried and fine. Two ounces of flour is a scant 1/2 cup, 2 ounces of butter is 4 tablespoons, and 1/2 pint of milk is 1 cup on American measure, or 10 fluid ounces if the book's measures are imperial.
- What "candied fruit" meantCandied citrus peel, glacé cherries, angelica, candied pineapple — the mixed-peel sort of thing kept in the house for cake and dessert. The recipe exists to use up pieces that have gone tacky and sugary in the jar, which is exactly the condition that makes them useless on a dessert plate and fine in a pudding.
- Breadcrumbs do the work of eggsThere is no egg and no leavening here, so the pudding sets by the crumbs swelling in hot milk. Let the mixture stand ten minutes after the milk goes in so the crumbs hydrate fully, or the texture will be loose and patchy.
- Setting up the steamerButter a 1-quart mold or pudding basin, fill it no more than three-quarters, and cover it tightly with buttered foil or a pleated cloth tied down — otherwise condensation runs in and waterlogs the top. Stand it on a rack in a deep pot with boiling water reaching halfway up the mold, lid on, water kept at a bare simmer and topped up with boiling water as it drops.
- Three hours is generousThat timing suits a larger mold and a less controllable range. In a 1-quart mold on a modern burner, 1 1/2 to 2 hours is enough; the pudding is done when a skewer comes out clean and the surface feels firm and springy. Overlong steaming will not ruin it, but it dulls the fruit.
- Sweetness and seasoningNothing sweetens this but the fruit, so a very dry batch of peel gives a rather plain pudding. A tablespoon or two of sugar in the milk, and a pinch of salt, are within the spirit of the recipe; the sauce is meant to carry most of the sweetness.
- The sauces referred toWine sauces of this sort were generally a sweetened sauce thickened with a little flour or cornstarch and flavored with sherry or Madeira; "plain sweet sauce" is the same without wine, or simply melted butter beaten with sugar. Cream and sugar, as suggested, is the least trouble.
- YieldServes four, or five at the end of a full meal. Turn it out hot; a steamed pudding left to cool in its mold is apt to stick.
Steamed puddings of this kind were the everyday relatives of the richer boiled Christmas pudding: no eggs, no suet, no brandy, just breadcrumbs, milk and whatever sweet odds were in the cupboard. Candied peel and glacé cherries were commonly kept in the house for cakes and holiday baking, and slowly went damp in their jars as the sugar drew moisture from the air — the recipe's opening line about fruit "getting a little damp to use as dessert" is a frugal instruction, not a garnish.