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Boiled Lemon Pudding
892. Take half a pound of bread crumbs, half a pound of sifted sugar, the grated rind and juice of three small lemons, a quarter of a pound of butter, and six beaten eggs; stir the butter with half the sugar till light, then stir in two table-spoonsful of flour: add the butter and sugar by degrees to the bread crumbs, mix the remaining sugar with the lemon juice, and add gradually to the rest; boil in a cloth or in a mould with a hole in the centre, which can be filled with a sauce of beaten butter and sugar flavoured with lemon.
A mid-Victorian boiled pudding, essentially a lemon bread-and-butter batter set by long steaming. The whole thing hangs on giving it a full, steady boil with the water never dropping off the simmer.
- Bread crumbs by weightHalf a pound of soft white crumbs is roughly 4 cups loosely packed, from about 8 slices of stale bread with the crusts off. Weigh rather than measure; dried or packaged crumbs are far denser and will give a heavy, dry pudding.
- Sifted sugar"Sifted sugar" in this period means fine white sugar broken from the loaf and passed through a sieve, so caster or superfine sugar is the closest match. Half a pound is about 1 generous cup.
- Butter and eggsA quarter pound is 4 oz (1 stick), softened so it will cream with the sugar. Eggs of the period were often smaller than today's large; five to six large eggs is a fair equivalent.
- LemonsThree small lemons give roughly 1 tablespoon of zest and 4 to 6 tablespoons of juice. Grate only the coloured zest, stopping before the white pith, which turns bitter in long cooking.
- The cloth or the mouldFor a cloth, scald it, flour the inside well, tie loosely to allow swelling, and lower into fast-boiling water. In a mould, butter it heavily, fill two-thirds full, cover with buttered paper and a tied cloth, and stand it in a pan of water reaching halfway up.
- TimeA pudding of this size needs about 2 to 2 1/2 hours at a steady boil, less in a ring mould with a central hole, which cooks faster because heat reaches the middle. Top up with boiling water so the level never falls; cold water added mid-cook will make it sad and dense.
- The mould with a holeThis is a ring mould, what a French kitchen would call a savarin shape. The hollow centre is meant to be filled at table with the sauce, so turn the pudding out while hot and pour in immediately.
- "Beaten butter and sugar"A creamed butter-and-sugar sauce of the type later called hard sauce: soft butter beaten with fine sugar and lemon juice and zest to taste. The recipe does not specify proportions or whether it is served firm or soft.
- YieldThe original gives none. It serves 6 to 8, and reheats well by steaming slices for a few minutes.
Boiled puddings tied in a floured cloth were the backbone of British sweet cookery from the seventeenth century onward, since a pot of water over the fire was cheaper and more reliable than an oven, and the same pot could hold the pudding alongside the meat. This one belongs to a genteel branch of the family: bread crumbs rather than suet, a full half pound of sugar and six eggs, and lemon in both rind and juice. Shaped metal moulds were increasingly common in mid-century kitchens, and the ring mould offered here as an alternative to the cloth suggests a more formal presentation at table. The butter-and-sugar sauce is of the type later called hard sauce, the same sort of mixture still served with Christmas pudding.