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Butter Pudding, Plain
INGREDIENTS for good-sized pudding.-2 oz. of raisins, a few thin slices of bread and butter, 3 eggs, 1 pint of milk, sugar to taste, 1/4 nutmeg.
AVERAGE COST, 9d.
Butter a pudding-basin, and line the inside with a layer of raisins that have been previously stoned; then nearly fill the basin with slices of bread and butter with the crust cut off, and, in another basin, beat the eggs; add to them the milk, sugar, and grated nutmeg; mix all well together, and pour the whole on to the bread and butter; let it stand 1/2 hour, then tie a floured cloth over it; boil for 1 hour, and serve with sweet sauce. must be taken that the basin is quite full before the cloth is tied over.
TIME.-1 hour.
SEASONABLE at any time.
Care
A boiled bread-and-butter pudding: the same custard as the baked version, but set in a cloth-covered basin in a pan of water. The points below cover the vessel, the units and the one thing that decides whether it turns out custard or scrambled egg.
- The hinge: gentle heat, never a rolling boilEgg custard sets around 175-180F, and a hard boil for an hour will curdle it into a weeping, grainy mass. Keep the water at a bare shiver, barely moving, and top up with boiling water as it evaporates.
- Basin and water levelThe book does not give a size; a basin generously bigger than the pint of custard, with a rim that will take a tied cloth, is what is wanted. Stand it on a trivet or folded cloth in the pan and bring the water two-thirds up the sides, not over the top.
- The pint is imperialMrs Beeton's pint is 20 fl oz, roughly 570 ml. With 3 eggs that gives a soft, loose custard; if you want it firmer, use 4.
- Floured cloth, and what to use insteadThe flour seals the weave against steam. A pleated round of baking parchment under pleated foil, tied with string, does the same job and is far easier to lift off.
- Fill the basin right upThe instruction tacked on at the end is the practical one: any air gap under the cloth collects condensation and dilutes the top of the pudding. Fill to within a few millimetres of the rim.
- Stoned raisinsNineteenth-century raisins commonly came with seeds and had to be slit and picked. Modern seedless raisins go straight in; 2 oz is about 55 g, roughly a third of a cup.
- NutmegA quarter of a whole nutmeg grated is roughly half a teaspoon, which is assertive. Grate it fresh into the milk and eggs rather than adding pre-ground.
- Standing half an hourThis is not optional padding. Dry crusted bread needs the soak to absorb custard evenly, otherwise the top layer stays chewy and the bottom turns to paste.
- Sweet sauce and yield"Sweet sauce" would be one of the book's sweet pudding sauces: a thin pouring custard, or a sugar-and-butter sauce, sometimes with wine or brandy. The recipe gives no yield beyond calling it a good-sized pudding; turn it out onto a warm plate.
Boiled puddings in a cloth-tied basin were a mainstay of English household cookery well before ovens were common in small kitchens; a single pot over the fire could carry the meat, the vegetables and the pudding at once. This one belongs to the frugal end of the tradition, built from bread and butter already in the house, and the ninepence is the average cost the book quotes, as it does for its recipes throughout. The custard-soaked-bread idea is old and widespread, and the more familiar baked bread-and-butter pudding is essentially the same mixture given a browned top; Beeton's Book of Household Management prints other bread-and-butter variations, and this one is titled the plain version, marked seasonable at any time because it depends on nothing that comes and goes with the year.