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September 25
Menu: Broiled Butterfish; German Fried Potatoes; Cucumber Salad; Cheese Balls; Bread Pudding with Cherries; Coffee Bread Pudding with Cherries-Soak 1½ pound bread in cold water till soft. Press out water and beat out any lumps with fork. Add 2 tablespoons Crisco, 2 tablespoons sugar, 1½ teaspoon vanilla extract, and 14 pound glace cherries and 1 teaspoon baking powder. Mix well, and add 1 well-beaten egg and 3 tablespoons milk. Put into Criscoed basin and cover with Criscoed paper, and steam for 1/2 hours.
A steamed suet-style pudding rebuilt on stale bread and vegetable shortening rather than beef suet. It is forgiving, but the soaking and the wringing-out are what decide whether it turns out light or leaden.
- CriscoThe all-vegetable shortening the book exists to sell. Any solid white shortening works, and unsalted butter gives a better flavour at the small quantities used here.
- The breadUse dry, stale white bread, crusts and all. Fresh bread turns to paste and will not absorb properly. Soak until thoroughly soft, then squeeze hard in your hands so the crumb is damp rather than wet; leftover water is the usual cause of a heavy pudding.
- Glace cherriesCandied cherries, sold in the baking aisle. Rinse off the surface syrup and dry them, then toss in a spoonful of flour so they do not sink to one end of the basin.
- Criscoed basin and paperA greased pudding basin covered with greased parchment, pleated across the middle to allow the pudding to rise, then tied under the rim with string. Choose a basin that the mixture fills to about three-quarters.
- SteamingStand the covered basin on a trivet or folded cloth in a deep pan, add boiling water to come halfway up the sides, and keep it at a bare simmer, topping up with boiling water as needed. A pudding of this size wants roughly an hour and a half; it is done when a skewer comes out clean and the top springs back.
- QuantitiesThe proportions as printed do not read consistently — the weight of bread and the weight of cherries are both suspect, and the steaming time has lost its fraction. Judge by the mixture: it should be a thick, dropping consistency that holds a spoon upright, and the fruit should be a visible but not dominant scatter.
- ServingTurn out onto a warm plate and serve hot with custard, cream or a plain sugar sauce.
Steamed puddings were the backbone of British and Anglo-American home cooking well into the twentieth century, and bread pudding was the thrifty end of the family: yesterday's loaf, an egg, a little sugar, and whatever dried or candied fruit the store cupboard held. What marks this version as a promotional recipe is the fat. Traditional steamed puddings were bound with shredded beef suet, and the whole argument of the book that carries this recipe is that a neutral hydrogenated vegetable shortening can stand in for animal fat anywhere it appears, with the added selling points of keeping well and having no flavour of its own. The dated heading ("September 26") points to a calendar-of-dinners arrangement, a device manufacturer cookbooks of the period sometimes used, giving the cook a run of menus and, incidentally, reasons to keep a tin in the pantry.