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Raspberry Pudding
The directions for making this will answer for every kind of fruit that can be used for puddings.
Make the plain short paste as previously directed--if with suet it should be chopped with flour mixed in till it is as fine as powder. Line some deep earth enware bowls of any size from a pint to two quarts with the paste rolled out to a thin sheet. Then fill quite full and rounded up with fresh--picked raspberries. Wet the edges of the paste; roll out a round sheet of paste and lay it on top; cut off the surplus by rolling the edge with the rolling--pin, thereby closing it at same time. Wet and flour a pudding cloth, lay the middle on top of the pudding, gather the corners around the bottom of the bowl and tie safely. Drop the pudding upside down into plenty of boiling water and keep boiling from one to two hours, according to size and kind. When done dip the pudding a moment in cold water, take off the cloth; cut a round hole in the top, put in a sufficiency of sugar and serve in the bowl set on a plate. No sauce needed. Several pleasant combinations of sweet and sour kinds of fruit can be made and used in this way; sometimes with a suitable sauce.
A boiled basin pudding of the old English type, with raw fruit sealed inside a suet or short crust and cooked in the pot rather than the oven. The method is sound; only the equipment and a few habits need translating.
- The hinge: seal, then keep the water boilingThe paste is the vessel, so the lid must be welded to the sides with a wet edge and the cloth tied tight below the rim of the bowl. If water gets in through a gap or the pot goes off the boil and the pudding cools, the crust turns to paste and the juice escapes.
- Basin sizesThe recipe allows anything from a pint to two quarts, and gives no serving numbers. Timing follows size and kind: one to two hours, so a small modern basin sits at the lower end of that range and only the largest size needs the full two hours.
- SuetBeef suet chopped fine with flour is the original. Packaged shredded suet (beef or vegetable) needs no chopping and behaves the same. If using a plain short paste with butter instead, keep everything cold and expect a slightly less resilient crust.
- Cloth or foilA floured cloth is the cover the recipe specifies. If you would rather not manage one, pleat a round of baking parchment over a round of foil, tie under the rim, and steam in a covered pan instead of boiling.
- Water managementThe pudding goes into water already at a rolling boil, deep enough to cover it, and inverted so the tied corners sit underneath. Set it on a folded cloth or trivet so the bowl does not rattle against the pan base, and top up with boiling water from a kettle as the level drops — never cold water.
- Why the sugar goes in lastThe recipe adds no sugar to the fruit; it is put in through the hole cut in the top after boiling and served in the bowl. Raspberries go in dry and 'quite full and rounded up' as directed, since the fruit settles as it cooks.
- The cold dipA moment in cold water shrinks the crust slightly away from the cloth and the basin so nothing tears when you unwrap it. Do not leave it soaking.
- Fruit combinationsThe instruction holds for any firm fruit: gooseberry, damson, blackcurrant, sliced apple with blackberry. The recipe itself suggests combining sweet and sour kinds, sometimes with a suitable sauce; hard fruit such as apple should be sliced thin so it cooks through in the same time as the crust.
Boiled puddings in a basin lined with suet crust are an English inheritance, and a fruit "pudding" of this kind is essentially a pie cooked in water rather than in an oven — an advantage in a kitchen without reliable oven heat. The pudding cloth is older than the basin: puddings were tied in cloth alone before bowls were used to give them shape, and the wet cloth was floured to keep the paste from sticking. That the author treats raspberries as the model and then says the directions "will answer for every kind of fruit" shows a book teaching a method once and expecting the cook to vary the filling with the season.