Plum Puddings: Introduction

My friends from England use "pudding" for almost any sweet that comes at the end of a meal. In the States we usually think of puddings as custards cooked on top of the stove, but pudding can be baked or steamed instead, which gives a denser texture. Great-Grammy says: "This type of pudding was packed in a pudding mold. My mother had one. It was of metal with a tight lid and was immersed in a pot of boiling water."

On October 12, 1944, Uncle Charlie (Averil's older brother), then Captain of the battleship USS Appalachia, wrote to Averil from an undisclosed location in the Pacific: "So you're going to the source...Aunt Edith, in this case...to learn how to make Grandmother Jeffs' plum puddings. Well, mark, learn...and "inwardly digest" (ouch)...and don't forget the knack when you do learn because I'll ask you to make one for me some day."

I don't have the recipe from 1944, but Aunt Averil's book includes two plum pudding recipes, one labeled: "Grandma and Aunt Edith 2/25/34" and the other "Grandma Jeffs." A third recipe was on a loose sheet tucked into the book and labeled "My Grandma Jeffs' recipe. Martha Moore [Averil's sister] helped A.E [Aunt Edith] in 1950? and copied this then."

Since the two recipes from Aunt Edith are practically identical (the later one uses less raisins and suet), I have combined them here in the left column, with the other on the right. Notes on ingredients follow the recipes.

The following pages contain related recipes:

• From Averil's book, another steamed pudding, Batter Pudding, and
• Bread and Butter Pudding, which resembles both plum pudding and fruitcake.
• The mystery box has no plum pudding recipes, but it does include three fruitcakes .
• Carol's Jeff's box has fruitcake from Averil's sister Isabella who passed it on to her niece, Charlie's daughter, Happy (Harriet).
• From Aunt Sue's recipes, Nana Klotz's fruitcake.

Gramdma Jeffs' Plum Pudding

Remove crust from bread. Soak bread in cold water. Wring out and break up fine. Add suet, fruit, candied peel, sugar, salt, grated carrots and wine. Add milk to beaten eggs and add to pudding.

Grease bowls or mold with suet before putting in the pudding. Pack the pudding in a mold; cover it tightly. Or pack pudding into a heat-proof bowl and tie a pudding tightly over it. Put the mold on a rack in a kettle with one or two inches boiling water. Keep the kettle covered and the steam will cook the pudding. Boil 9 to 10 hours, adding more water as needed. Dry thoroughly before putting away in a dry, cool place.

Traditionally plum pudding is served flaming (pour a little warm brandy over the pudding and light it with a match) or with hard sauce (see below).

Notes on Ingredients

1. Raisins: A number of recipes call for both seeded and seedless raisins. Seeded raisins were often made from Muscat grapes. The seeds are edible, but a little bitter. The big advantage of seeded raisins was that they were less expensive than seedless. I thought seedless grapes were relatively recent. Nope. The golden seedless raisins we have today from are from Sultana grapes, introduced to the US (or maybe just popularized) by William Thompson (1816–1897). But back in 75 CE, Pliny the Elder described seedless grapes. Today Pliny's small, dark grapes are called Zante currants, after the Greek island Zakynthos. Zante currants (genus Vitus) are not related to red currants (genus Ribes) which sometimes appear in the same recipes as raisins. For the purposes of these recipes, I would use a mix of dark and golden raisins and currants.


2. Suet: Why do these recipes use suet? Originally plum pudding was served with the meat course. The Scots Kitchen (based on a 19th-century cookbook) by F. Marian McNeill includes a recipe for Plum Porridge that uses beef shank and veal. The suet is apparently left over from those recipes. Some recipes specify kidney suet because it is smoother and less stringy. You probably will have to ask a butcher for the suet. (I wonder if it is possible to substitute margarine or Crisco.)


3. Nutmeg: Four nutmegs! That comes to at least 8 teaspoons grated. It seems like an awful lot. About "5 cents nutmeg," Great-Grammy wrote: "I recall when 5 cents bought a loaf of bread, so it must have been a whole nutmeg . . . I looked at some more up-to-date plum pudding recipes, and each of them required 1 teaspoon nutmeg. If I were to make this, I'd do the same (1 teaspoon) because too much could spoil the pudding."


4. Wine, Old Ale: It might be that Grandma Jeffs used whatever liquor she had on hand. Brandy is also traditional. Old Ale is not a brand, but a style of dark, malty ale, sometimes made with aged yeast. It is sometimes called stock ale or winter warmer. Beer Advocate lists a number of brands from around the country. The only one I recognized is Old Peculiar, which I like, but I realize that it lives up to its name. For the purpose of this recipe, I would use any strong, dark English-style ale, something on the malty side.


5. Peel: Great-Grammy and I were not sure whether the amounts orange and lemon peel are meant to be mixed orange and lemon peel. Where the recipe says 1/4 pound, I would say definitely 1/4 pound each. But 2 pounds of candied peel is quite a lot, so maybe Aunt Edith used 1 pound of mixed peel.

Hard Sauce

Based on The Joy of Cooking

• 1 cup powdered sugar
• 2 to 5 tablespoons butter
• 1/8 teaspoon salt
• 1 tablespoon rum, brandy or whiskey (for non-alcoholic, 1 tablespoon lemon juice, or 1 teaspoon vanilla extract.
• The Scots Kitchen adds "a little cinnamon"

Cream the butter, add the sugar gradually, add salt and flavoring. Beat until it is very smooth.