Golden Pudding
INGREDIENTS lb. of bread-crumbs, 1/4 lb. of suet, 1/4 lb. of for pudding large enough for 6 persons.marmalade, 1/4 lb. of sugar, 4 eggs. AVERAGE Cost, 1s.
Put the bread-crumbs into a basin; mix with them the suet, which should be finely minced, the marmalade, and the sugar; stir all these ingredients well together, beat the eggs to a froth, moisten the pudding with these, and when well mixed put it into a mould or buttered basin; tie down with a floured cloth and boil for 2 hours. When turned out, strew a little fine-sifted sugar over the top, and serve.
TIME.-2 hours.
SEASONABLE at any time. stoned raisins, arranged in any fanciful pattern, Note. The mould may be ornamented with before the mixture is poured in, which would add very much to the appearance of the pudding. For a plainer pudding for children, double the quantity of the breadcrumbs; and if the eggs do not moisten it sufficiently, use a little milk.
Goose, 3 oz. of butter, pepper and salt to
A boiled suet pudding sweetened with marmalade — Victorian nursery cooking at its most economical. The method is straightforward; the main adjustments are the vessel, the units and the very long boil.
- The missing quantityThe bread-crumb weight has dropped out of the ingredient list. Judging by the proportions of the other ingredients (1/4 lb each of suet, marmalade and sugar, plus 4 eggs), 1/2 lb of crumbs is the sensible reading — about 4 cups of soft fresh crumbs.
- SuetBeef suet is the hard fat from around the kidneys; shredded packet suet is the modern equivalent and needs no mincing. Vegetable suet works and gives a slightly lighter crumb. Butter frozen and coarsely grated is a workable substitute, though the texture will be denser.
- Bread-crumbsThese should be soft fresh crumbs from a day-old loaf, not the dry golden crumbs sold for coating. Dry crumbs absorb far more liquid and will give a heavy, pasty pudding.
- MarmaladeMarmalade in this period was typically a bitter Seville preserve, stiffer than most modern jars. A thick-cut bitter marmalade gives the intended balance against 1/4 lb of sugar; a sweet breakfast marmalade will make the pudding cloying, so cut the sugar back to about 3 oz.
- The mould and the clothA 2 pint pudding basin, well buttered, leaving headroom for the rise. The floured cloth can be replaced by a pleated round of baking parchment topped with foil, tied under the rim with string — the pleat gives the pudding room to rise.
- BoilingStand the basin on a trivet or folded cloth in a deep pan, with boiling water reaching two-thirds up the sides, and keep it at a bare simmer with the lid on. Top up with boiling water as it drops; if the pan boils dry the pudding scorches and the basin may crack.
- TimeTwo hours is right for a full-sized basin and should not be shortened much — suet needs prolonged moist heat to melt through and set the crumb. Smaller individual basins are done in about 45 minutes.
- Yield and servingSix servings. Turn out onto a warmed plate, dust with icing sugar, and serve with custard or a thin marmalade sauce made by warming a few spoonfuls of marmalade with a little water and lemon juice.
- The raisin liningPress the stoned raisins into the buttered basin in a pattern before filling; the butter holds them in place and they appear on the outside of the turned-out pudding. Use them sparingly or they slide during cooking.
Boiled puddings tied in a cloth, and later those set in a basin, were the backbone of English domestic cookery for centuries, and by Mrs Beeton's day nearly every household book carried dozens of them, distinguished mainly by what sweetened or flavoured the same base of crumbs, suet and eggs. "Golden" here is often said to refer to the colour the marmalade lends the crumb, though the book itself offers no explanation; the name echoes Golden Syrup and the various golden sauces of the period. The marmalade itself points to a specifically British store cupboard: Seville oranges arrived in a short winter season and were boiled into preserves that lasted the year, so a pudding built on marmalade could honestly be called seasonable at any time. The note about doubling the crumbs for a plainer children's pudding is characteristic of the book's approach: a basic recipe, scaled up or down in richness according to who was eating and what the household could afford, with the average cost printed so a mistress could check her cook's accounts.