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French Fruit Pudding
1 cup finely chopped suet 1 cup molasses 1 cup sour milk 1½ teaspoons soda 1 teaspoon cinnamon 1/2 teaspoon clove ½ teaspoon salt 2¾ cups flour 1¼ cups raisins, seeded and chopped 3/4 cup currants Mrs. Carrie M. Dearborn Add molasses and sour milk to suet; add two cups flour mixed and sifted with soda, salt, and spices; add fruit mixed with remaining flour. Turn into buttered mould, cover, and steam four hours. Serve with Sterling Sauce. 3 oz. beef suet Fig Pudding I ½ lb. figs, finely chopped 2⅓ cups stale bread crumbs ¾ teaspoon salt ½ cup milk 2 eggs 1 cup sugar Chop suet, and work with the hands until creamy, then add figs. Soak bread crumbs in milk, add eggs well beaten, sugar, and salt. Combine mixtures, turn into a buttered mould, steam three hours. Serve with Yellow Sauce I or II. ¼ lb. suet ½ lb. figs (finely chopped)
A steamed suet pudding of the plain New England type, leaning on molasses and dried fruit rather than butter and eggs. The method is forgiving; the vessel and the steaming are what need attention.
- Sour milkThis means naturally soured raw milk, thick and acidic, which reacts with the soda to leaven the pudding. Use buttermilk cup for cup, or add a tablespoon of lemon juice or vinegar to a cup of whole milk and let it stand ten minutes.
- SuetBeef suet is the hard fat from around the kidneys, sold by request at a butcher's counter. Chill it hard, pull away any membrane, then chop or grate finely. Frozen shredded suet works; vegetable shortening will give a softer, less springy crumb.
- Soda measureA teaspoon and a half of soda against one cup of molasses and one of sour milk is a lot but correct for the period: the molasses is acidic as well. Sift it thoroughly with the flour so there are no bitter pockets.
- Flour and fruit quantitiesThe flour and raisin figures in this printing have lost their fractions and cannot be read with confidence. A batter of this style normally takes about 2 3/4 cups flour and 1 1/4 cups raisins; expect a thick, dropping batter rather than a pourable one.
- The mouldFill a buttered pudding basin or covered mould no more than two-thirds full, since the soda will lift it considerably. Cover with buttered parchment and foil tied down, or a lid, so condensation cannot drip into the pudding.
- SteamingSet the mould on a rack in a deep pot with boiling water reaching halfway up the sides, keep it at a bare simmer, and top up with boiling water as it drops. Four hours is genuine, not cautious: the long steam is what makes the crumb dark and moist.
- CurrantsThese are dried Zante currants, small black raisins, not fresh redcurrants or blackcurrants. Rinse and dry them if they are dusty.
- ServingUnmould while hot, and serve with the book's Sterling Sauce; the pudding reheats well by steaming for half an hour.
Suet puddings steamed for hours in a covered mould were the standard winter dessert of Anglo-American kitchens well into the twentieth century, and collections of the period carry long files of them. Nothing about this one is especially French: in nineteenth-century American cookbooks "French" was arguably applied loosely to a dish thought slightly more refined than its plain equivalent, though that reading is speculation, and the contribution here is credited to Mrs. Carrie M. Dearborn, who taught at the Boston Cooking School and whose name appears on several recipes in the collection. The reliance on molasses, sour milk and soda rather than sugar, sweet milk and eggs marks it as economical cookery; the raisins and currants were pantry staples, imported dried fruit being cheap and keeping indefinitely.