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Military Pudding
8 ounces of bread or rusk crumbs 6 ounces of butter 4 ounces of moist sugar Rind and juice of 1 large lemon Any jam desired Mix the butter, crumbs, sugar and lemon together; grease a medium-sized baking dish, and spread a layer of jam on the bottom, put the mixture on top, and bake for about half an hour.
A simple crumb pudding that behaves more like a baked butter-and-crumb sponge than a steamed one. The proportions are unusually rich, and the original leaves oven heat, dish size and yield unstated.
- Moist sugarThis is soft light brown sugar, the damp unrefined grade sold in Britain as light muscovado or soft brown. Granulated white will work but flattens the flavour.
- Rusk crumbsRusk is twice-baked dried bread, drier and finer than fresh crumbs. If you use fresh soft breadcrumbs instead, the mixture will be wetter and will need the full half hour or a little longer; dried crumbs or crushed plain rusks give a firmer set.
- Oven temperatureNo heat is given. A moderate oven, 350F, for about 30 minutes suits this: hot enough to set the butter and crumbs, not so hot that the jam layer scorches at the edges.
- The butterEight ounces of crumbs to six of butter is very rich. Soften or melt the butter before mixing, or the crumbs will not coat evenly and the pudding bakes greasy in patches.
- The lemonUse only the yellow zest, finely grated, not the white pith. The juice of one large lemon is roughly 3 tablespoons and is what keeps the whole thing from tasting like sweetened butter.
- Dish and jamThe original says only "a medium-sized baking dish" and "any jam desired", giving no capacity or quantity. Something on the order of a shallow pie dish or gratin will hold this quantity. Spread the jam thinly; a thick layer tends to boil up the sides.
- Yield and servingNo yield is given; the quantities would probably serve four to six. Puddings of this kind were usually sent to the table hot in the dish, with custard or pouring cream; it firms as it cools.
Military pudding turns up in British household cookery from the nineteenth century onward, and in its older form it was a suet pudding — breadcrumbs, suet, sugar and lemon, tied in a cloth and boiled for hours. The origin of the name is not known, but like Cabinet, College and Nelson puddings it belongs to a family of crumb-and-fat puddings named after institutions. What is striking in this version is the swap that is not remarked on: butter stands in for beef suet. Baking rather than boiling is the other departure, where a pudding cloth meant a pot on the boil for two or three hours.