Home › Plum Pudding › Plum Pudding
Plum Pudding
868. Mix together a quarter of a pound of bread-crumbs, the same of treacle, currants, and suet, and a little nutmeg. Put in a basin or shape, and boil three hours. 869. Common Plum Pudding.-Soak nine ounces of white bread in milk from six to twelve hours, squeeze very dry, add to it half a pound of raisins when stoned, four ounces of suet chopped fine, three eggs, three ounces of sugar, a little nutmeg; butter a mould, put it in, and boil three hours. Serve with wine sauce.
Two boiled puddings, both economical versions of the Christmas standard: one bound with breadcrumbs and treacle, one with milk-soaked bread and eggs. Both are steamed in a covered mould rather than boiled loose in a cloth.
- The hinge: keep the water simmeringA pudding basin sits in water that must stay at a steady bare simmer for the full three hours, with the water level kept about two-thirds up the mould. Topping up with cold water or letting the pan boil dry mid-way gives a heavy, sodden centre.
- Cover the mouldNeither entry says so, but a buttered basin needs a pleated round of parchment and foil tied under the rim, or the pudding takes on water. Set it on a trivet or a folded cloth so it is not in direct contact with the pan base.
- TreacleIn a British book of this period treacle means dark cane treacle Ŏ black treacle or molasses Ŏ not golden syrup. A quarter of a pound is roughly five tablespoons; weigh it rather than measure, as it clings to the spoon.
- SuetBeef suet chopped fine was the norm; packaged shredded suet, beef or vegetable, substitutes weight for weight. A quarter pound is 4 oz, roughly 115 g.
- Currants and raisinsCurrants here are dried Zante currants, not fresh fruit. "Raisins when stoned" most likely means the fruit is to be stoned before use; whether the half pound is weighed before or after stoning is not clear from the text. With modern seedless raisins, use 8 oz.
- Nutmeg"A little nutmeg" is unquantified; in a pudding of this size perhaps a quarter teaspoon, freshly grated. Pre-ground nutmeg is weaker and staler, so lean on the higher side if that is what you have.
- Soaking the breadSix to twelve hours in milk is longer than needed for modern soft white bread, which collapses in an hour or two. Squeeze it genuinely dry in a cloth or the batter will not hold the fruit in suspension.
- Wine sauceThe period sauce is butter, sugar and sherry or Madeira beaten warm, not a wine reduction. Brandy butter or a plain custard suits the same purpose.
- YieldThe first recipe fills roughly a 1-pint (600 ml) basin; the second is half again as large and needs something nearer 1.5 pints. Serves four to six in the small slices these rich puddings expect. Turn out after five minutes' resting.