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Rhubarb Pudding, Boiled
INGREDIENTS for pudding for 6 persons. -4 or 5 sticks of fine rhubarb, 1/4 lb. of moist sugar, 3/4 lb. of suet-crust. AVERAGE COST, 8d.
Make a suet-crust with 3/4 lb. of flour, and line a buttered basin with it. Wash and wipe the rhubarb, and, if old, string itthat is to say, pare off the outside skin. Cut it into inch lengths, fill the basin with it, put in the sugar and cover with crust.
Pinch the edges of the pudding together, tie over it a floured cloth, put it into boilboil ing water, and boil from 2 to 2 1/2 hours.
Turn it out of the basin, and serve with sifted sugar.
TIME.-2 to 2 hours.
SEASONABLE from February to May.
A steamed suet pudding in the plainest Victorian style: raw rhubarb and sugar sealed inside a suet crust and boiled in a basin. The crust does the work of a pie shell and the fruit cooks in its own juice.
- Boiling timeThe stated time has lost its fraction. A 1½-pint basin lined with suet crust and filled with raw fruit needs about 2 to 2½ hours at a steady simmer, topped up with boiling water so the level stays halfway up the basin.
- Suet crust proportionsFor 3/4 lb (about 2 3/4 cups) of flour use 6 oz shredded suet and roughly 6-7 fl oz cold water, a common 2:1 flour-to-suet ratio. The recipe names no raising agent and does not specify self-raising flour. Roll it about 1/4 inch thick for the lining and keep a third back for the lid.
- Moist sugarThis is unrefined soft brown sugar, damp and clumping. Light muscovado or soft light brown sugar is the direct equivalent; 1/4 lb is about 1/2 cup packed.
- How much rhubarbFour or five sticks of "fine" rhubarb is roughly 1 to 1 1/4 lb trimmed. The recipe gives no basin size; with 3/4 lb of flour made into crust, something in the region of 1 1/2 to 2 pints is implied. Pack it in tightly, as it shrinks considerably.
- StringingModern forced and early-season rhubarb needs no peeling. Only thick late stalks with tough fibres benefit from having the outer skin pared away.
- LeavesDiscard the leaf blades entirely; only the stalks are eaten. This is standard practice with rhubarb and the recipe assumes it.
- Covering the basinA floured cloth tied over the rim was the period seal. Buttered parchment and foil, pleated to allow rise and tied under the rim with string, is easier to handle and keeps water out just as well.
- Steaming insteadThe pudding can be stood on a trivet in a covered pan with water halfway up the basin rather than immersed. Allow a little longer than for boiling, and there is less risk of water breaching the cover.
- ServingTurn out onto a warm dish, dust with caster sugar, and serve with cream or custard. Serves six as written, and the juices will run as soon as the crust is cut.
Boiled suet puddings in a basin were the backbone of English domestic sweets through the nineteenth century, cheap in fuel because they sat over one pot on the range for hours and needed no oven at all. Rhubarb reached British kitchens as a food plant only in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries — before that it was grown chiefly for the medicinal root — and by Mrs Beeton's day forced sticks were available in late winter, which is why the entry is marked seasonable from February to May, well before any other homegrown fruit. The costing of eightpence, given as a matter of course beside the ingredients, is characteristic of the book: it was written for households keeping accounts, and the price told a cook as much about a dish as the method did.