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Johnnie's Delight
(Cheap Plum Pudding.) 2 cups stale bread crumbs. 1 cup molasses. 1 cup milk (sweet) 1 teaspoon cinnamon. 1/2 teaspoon cloves. 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg. 1/2 cup chopped beef suet. 1 cup raisins. 1/2 cup flour. 1 egg. 1/4 teaspoon soda. Mix well and steam three hours. Leave three or four inches in can for dough to rise.
A steamed molasses pudding of the thrifty sort, built on stale bread rather than the heavy flour-and-fruit mixture of a proper Christmas pudding. The instructions assume you already know how to rig a steamer, so most of the work of translation is there.
- The vessel"Can" means a lidded tin or pudding mold, and the three or four inches of headspace is the whole point: the batter swells considerably as the soda works and the crumbs absorb liquid. Use a 1 1/2 to 2 quart mold, grease it well, and fill it no more than two-thirds. A covered pudding basin with a pleated foil-and-parchment lid tied under the rim works identically.
- How to steamSet the sealed mold on a rack in a deep pot, pour in boiling water to come halfway up its sides, cover the pot, and keep the water at a bare simmer. Top up with boiling water as it drops; if the pot boils dry the pudding scorches and the mold can buckle.
- Three hours is rightUnlike many old timings, this one should not be shortened. The pudding sets slowly and gently, and suet needs the long, wet heat to render into the crumb. It is done when a skewer comes out clean and the top springs back.
- Beef suetRaw kidney suet is rarely on display now but butchers will supply it on request; chop or grate it while cold and hard, and do not let it warm to a paste. Frozen shredded suet is sold in some markets. Butter can stand in, though the crumb comes out softer and less springy.
- Soda and molassesThe quarter teaspoon of soda is there to react with the acid in the molasses, not as a general leavener, so it should be sifted with the flour and the batter steamed promptly once mixed. Use unsulphured molasses; blackstrap is too bitter for the quantity called for here.
- Bread crumbsThese are soft crumbs torn or grated from stale bread, not dry packaged crumbs, which will drink the milk and leave the pudding dense. About four slices of day-old white bread gives the two cups.
- Yield and servingServes six to eight. Let the pudding stand ten minutes before unmolding, and serve warm with a hard sauce, a thin custard, or lemon sauce. It reheats well by steaming for half an hour.
Steamed puddings of this kind were the cheap end of a long English tradition: the true plum pudding wanted eggs, brandy, candied peel and a pound or more of suet, while the household versions stretched a little molasses and dried fruit over stale bread that would otherwise have gone to the chickens. The homely name is unexplained in the book; "Johnnie" was presumably somebody's son who liked it. Steaming in a tin can, rather than a china basin, points to the same economy: the container was whatever the pantry had already paid for.