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Prune Pudding
Soak a pint sound prunes in cold water seven hours, drain and remove stones. Place in a basin two ounces finely chopped beef marrow free from all sinews, four ounces sugar, four ounces flour, four eggs, half gill good rum, saltspoon ground cinnamon and half saltspoon grated nutmeg. Thoroughly stir with wooden spoon five minutes. Add half gill thick cream and two ounces bread crumbs. Mix well, then add the prunes and lightly mix. Butter and flour lightly a strong cloth, drop preparation in the centre fold up the four corners and tightly tie the pudding. Place in a saucepan with boiling water, filling it to twice the height of pudding and boil two hours and a half. Lift up and hang it for ten minutes. Untie, turn on a dish, dredge two tablespoons fine sugar around, pour a quarter gill good brandy over, set fire to it and send to table. Tuesday, Fourth Week of June
A boiled cloth pudding of the old school, enriched with beef marrow rather than suet. Nothing here is unsafe, but the vessels, the units and the cloth all need translating.
- The unitsA gill is a quarter of a pint: about 4 fl oz (1/2 cup) by American measure, 5 fl oz by imperial. Half a gill is therefore roughly 1/4 cup and a quarter gill roughly 2 tablespoons. A saltspoon is 1/4 teaspoon. A pint of prunes is a volume measure, somewhere around 12 oz of dried fruit.
- Beef marrowTwo ounces of marrow means the soft interior of a cracked beef leg bone, warmed slightly and chopped fine. Ask a butcher for marrow bones or for canoe-cut marrow; beef suet is the usual substitute, though it is firmer and melts less readily, and unsalted butter will work though it gives a less springy crumb.
- Chopped, not meltedThe marrow must go in cold and finely chopped so it stays in solid specks through the mixing. If it melts into the batter the pudding steams heavy instead of light.
- The clothUse a square of unbleached cotton or linen about 24 inches on a side, scalded in boiling water, wrung out, then buttered and floured on the inside. Tie with kitchen twine leaving room for expansion, but not so much slack that water gets in. A buttered 2-quart pudding basin with a pleated foil-and-parchment lid, steamed rather than boiled, is the modern equivalent and far easier to manage.
- Keep the water boilingThe pan should be deep enough that the water stands at twice the height of the pudding, and it must be topped up from a kettle of boiling water, never cold. A drop in temperature partway through gives a sodden band through the middle.
- Hanging itThe ten-minute hang is not decorative. It lets the surface steam evaporate so the cloth peels away cleanly and the pudding does not collapse when turned out.
- Flaming the brandyWarm the couple of tablespoons of brandy first; cold spirit will not catch. Light it away from the range hood and any cloth, and carry it to the table already burning.
- YieldServes six to eight. A hard sauce, or plain cream, is the usual accompaniment.
Boiled puddings tied in a floured cloth were the everyday sweet of British and Anglo-American kitchens for two centuries before the pudding basin and the steamer made them tidier, and this one belongs squarely to that tradition. What marks it as continental is the beef marrow: French and Central European cookery used marrow where an English cook would have reached for suet, and marrow-enriched sweet puddings and dumplings turn up across German- and Austrian-influenced kitchens, often paired with prunes or dried plums. Dried plums themselves were a staple of the well-stocked larder, imported in quantity from France and, later, from California. The brandy set alight at the table is the standard finish for a festive boiled pudding, borrowed straight from Christmas plum pudding practice.