Home › Rich Teacup Puddings › Rich Teacup Puddings
Rich Teacup Puddings
918. Scald five ounces of crumbs of bread in milk, and add six ounces of suet chopped very fine, eight ounces of currants, seven eggs, leaving out two whites, three table-spoonsful of brandy, a little nutmeg, salt, lemon, and candied-peel and sugar to the taste. Bake in teacups, and serve with wine sauce.
A rich baked suet-and-egg pudding, portioned into cups rather than a single basin. The proportions are heavy on egg, so the mixture sets closer to a bread custard than to a boiled plum pudding.
- Weights in cupsFive ounces of breadcrumbs is roughly 2 1/2 cups of soft fresh crumbs; six ounces of suet about 1 1/4 cups shredded; eight ounces of currants about 1 1/2 cups. Weigh if you can, since crumb volume varies enormously with how coarsely you tear the bread.
- The milk is unmeasured"Scald in milk" means pour hot milk over the crumbs and let them swell. Around 3/4 cup is enough to soften the crumbs without leaving them swimming; the seven eggs supply most of the liquid.
- SuetPacket shredded beef or vegetable suet works directly. Fresh beef suet from a butcher needs the membrane pulled away and the fat grated frozen, or it will not disperse.
- Currants, not raisinsThese are dried Zante currants, small and sharp, not fresh redcurrants or blackcurrants. Give them a brief soak in hot water or a little of the brandy if they are dry and hard.
- "A little lemon"Lemon -- The original says only 'lemon', with no form specified; grated zest is the most likely reading. Juice would thin the mixture and risk curdling the scalded milk.
- Oven and vesselBake at 325-350F. Modern teacups are often thin porcelain that will crack on direct heat; use ovenproof ramekins or ovenproof cups, filled about three-quarters, and stand them in a roasting tin of hot water so the egg sets gently.
- TimingThe original gives none. Expect 35-45 minutes for cups of about 6 fl oz, until risen, browned and just firm at the centre. Overbaking makes the egg weep and the texture rubbery.
- Wine saucePeriod wine sauces are usually butter, sugar and sherry or madeira worked together over gentle heat, sometimes thickened with an egg yolk. Serve it hot and pour at the table; the puddings dry quickly once turned out.
- YieldRoughly eight to ten cups of about 6 fl oz, fewer if generously filled. Rich enough that small portions are correct.
Baking a pudding mixture in individual cups avoided the labour of the boiled pudding cloth: no copper of water on the boil for hours, no straining, and a portion for each person that turns out neatly. The mixture itself is close to the English suet-and-currant puddings of the period, near a plum pudding but with a high proportion of egg and slackened with scalded breadcrumbs rather than flour. Brandy, nutmeg, candied peel and a wine sauce mark it as a company dish rather than an everyday one. The book is full of such numbered variations on a single theme, laid out so a cook could pick the version that matched what was in the larder.