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Plum Pudding, Baked
INGREDIENTS for pudding for 10 or 12 persons.- 2 lbs. of flour, 1 lb. of currants, 1 lb. of raisins, 1 lb. of suet, 2 eggs, 1 pint of milk, a few slices of candied peel. AVERAGE COST, 2s. 3d.
Chop the suet finely; mix it with the flour, currants, stoned raisins and candied peel; moisten with the well-beaten eggs, and add sufficient milk to make the pudding of the consistency of very thick batter. Put it into a buttered dish, and bake in a good oven from 2 to 24 hours; turn it out, strew sifted sugar over, and serve. For a very plain pudding, use only half the quantity of fruit, omit the eggs, and substitute milk or water for them. The above ingredients make a large family pudding: for a small one, half the quantity will be found ample; but it must be baked quite 1½ hour.
TIME.-Large pudding, 2 to 2 hours; half the size, 1½ hour.
SEASONABLE in winter.
A baked rather than boiled plum pudding — cheaper, quicker and far less trouble than the cloth-boiled Christmas kind, and closer in texture to a dense fruited batter pudding. A few Victorian conventions need translating before you start.
- "A good oven"The book gives no temperature, and the phrase is imprecise; a modern equivalent of roughly 350F/180C works here. The pudding is deep and heavy, so it needs a long, even bake rather than a fierce one; if the top colours too fast, cover loosely with foil after the first hour.
- Baking timeThe stated time for the full-size pudding is garbled in the original. Judge it on the pudding: a large one in a deep buttered dish will take roughly two to two and a half hours, and a skewer to the centre should come out clean and hot. The half quantity is given as a full hour and a half, which is reliable.
- SuetBeef suet was bought in a lump from the butcher and chopped by hand with a little flour to stop it clogging. Packet shredded suet, beef or vegetarian, goes straight in; 1 lb is a lot of fat for 2 lb flour, and the pudding is meant to be rich.
- "Stoned raisins"Raisins came with their seeds in and had to be split and picked. Modern seedless raisins need nothing done to them. "Plum" in the name means dried fruit generally, not fresh plums.
- ConsistencyThe hinge of the recipe. Add milk only until it is a very thick batter — one that drops reluctantly from the spoon, not one that pours. Too slack and the fruit sinks and the middle stays sodden; too stiff and it bakes to a brick.
- Candied peelA few slices means whole candied citron, orange or lemon peel, cut off a large piece. Around 2 to 3 oz of chopped mixed peel is the equivalent.
- The plain versionHalving the fruit and dropping the eggs, with milk or water in their place, was an economy measure. Without eggs the pudding is heavier and more scone-like; it is honest food but it will not rise or set in the same way.
- Dish and yieldUse a large buttered pie dish or deep baking dish; the full quantity is very bulky and serves ten to twelve as written. Turning it out whole is optimistic with a soft pudding -- serving from the dish is safer, with sifted sugar over the top.
- Cost2s. 3d. is the average cost given for the full family pudding, which the recipe reckons to serve ten or twelve.
Baked plum pudding is the everyday cousin of the boiled Christmas pudding: the same flour, suet and dried fruit, but set in a dish in the oven instead of tied in a scalded cloth and simmered for half a day. That mattered in a Victorian kitchen where the copper had to be lit and watched for a boiled pudding, while a baked one could go into the oven alongside the joint. The word "plum" had meant raisins and dried fruit generally since well before Beeton's time, which is why there is no plum in it. The note that it is "seasonable in winter" reflects the fact that dried fruit and a heavy flour pudding were cold-weather food; Beeton's household books routinely offer a rich version and a "very plain" one directly beneath it, so the same page could serve a family with money and one without.