ISO: ISO: T&T Christmas/Plum pudding

In Search Of:
1883 Buckeye Cookbook Christmas Pudding

One quart seeded raisins, pint currants, half pint citron cut up, quart of apples peeled and chopped, a quart of fresh and nicely chopped beef-suet, a quart of sweet milk, a heaping quart of stale bread-crumbs, eight eggs beaten separately, pint sugar, grated nutmeg, tea-spoon salt; flour fruit thoroughly from a quart of flour, then mix remainder as follows: In a large bowl or tray put the eggs with sugar, nutmeg and milk, stir in the fruit, bread-crumbs, and suet, one after the other until all are used, adding enough flour to make the fruit stick together, which will take about all the quart; dip pudding-cloth in boiling water, dredge on inside a thick coating of flour, put in pudding and tie tightly, allowing room to swell, and boil from two to three hours in a good sized pot with plenty of hot water, replenishing as needed from tea-kettle. When done, turn in a large flat dish and send to table with a sprig of holly, or any bit of evergreen with bright berries, stuck to the top. Serve with any pudding-sauce. This recipe furnishes enough for twenty people, but if the family is small, one-half the quantity may be prepared, or it is equally good warmed over by steaming.

For sauce, cream a half pound sweet butter, stir in three-quarters pound brown sugar, and the beaten yolk of an egg; simmer for a few moments over a slow fire, stirring almost constantly; when near boiling add half pint bottled grape-juice, and serve after grating a little nutmeg on the surface.

 
Richard in Cincy, I was just looking through Craig Claiborne's Favorites from N.Y. Times and look ..

what I found -- Christmas Plum Pudding King George V

December 19, 1974 East Hampton

"A Real Christmas Pudding"

............................"Much more practical, to our thinking, is a sober-minded rum-soaked and excellent plum pudding attributed to a cook of King George V of England.

We came by this recipe from Mrs. Sam S. Emison of Houston, who told us she has been using it each Christmas for the last 40 years, served with a hard sauce of her own creation. Mrs. Emison prepared enough of these puddings to serve 200 assembled guests at a special pre-Christmas celebration attended last evening by Friends of Fondren Library at Rice University in Houston. The pudding, she notes, is best flamed with 151-proof rum, in that lower-proof rums do not burn readily."

The pudding is good if made only a few days before Christmas. It freezes well and is an elegant dessert for any special occasion through out the winter.

Christmas Plum Pudding King George V

1-1/2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 tablespoon allspice
4 teaspoons ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon grated nutmeg
1/2 pound (2 cups) all purpose flour
1 pound seeded raisins
4 ounces mixed candied peel, cut-up
1 pound currants
1 pound sultanas (golden seedless raisins)
6 ounces whole raw almonds, blanched and chopped or sliced
1 pound dry bread crumbs
1 pound ground suet
1 pound brown sugar
1 pound winesap apples, peeled, cored and finely cubed (weigh apples after peeled and cored)
Grated rind of 1 lemon
1/2 cup dark rum
6 to 8 eggs (1-1/3 cups) well beaten
3/4 cup (approximately) 151-proof rum

Hard sauce (recipe follows)

In mixing bowl, combine the salt, baking powder, allspice, ginger, nutmeg, and flour. Sift 7 times.

Separate the seeded raisins and drop them one by one into the flour. Add candied peel and mix, working with fingers until separated and well coated with flour.

Put the currants, sultanas, almonds, bread crumbs, suet, brown sugar, cubed apples, lemon rind and flour mixture in a large container, approximately 4 gallons capacity. Mix thoroughly with hands, reaching to bottom of pot and lifting up. Then add 1/2 cup dark rum and mix thoroughly. Add beaten eggs and again mix thoroughly. Mixture will be damp and crumbly. Let stand overnight.
Makes about 9-1/4 pounds.

Divide into 3 greased bowls. If necessary, contents may be rounded above top of bowl. Cover tightly with foil. Do Not mash down. Pudding will shrink in volume as cooked.

Place each bowl on a high trivet in a heavy pot containing 1 inch of water. The bottom of bowl should be above water. Cover the pot closely. Use high heat first, then as steam begins to escape, lower heat just enough so steam will not escape. Steam 8 hours, adding more water if required.

After steaming, set aside at room temperature overnight to cool. Remove from bowl. Wrap in foil with double-lock seal. Age in refrigerator. The pudding will keep several months in refrigerator, or may be frozen and stored indefinitely.

To Serve, turn each pudding out on a flat plate. Pour approximately 1/4 cup 151-proof rum on each plate around the pudding. Light and ladle flaming rum over pudding. When burned away, serve with hard sauce. The rum should burn about 1 minute, as it slightly toasts the surface of the pudding. Use 151-proof rum. Lower proofs do not burn readily.

Yield: 3 puddings serve 50 people

Hard Sauce

1/2 pound (1 cup) butter
1 pound (4 cups sifted) confectioners' sugar
1 (2 tablespoons) egg white
1-1/2 tablespoons dark rum
2-1/2 tablespoons cognac
1 teaspoon vanilla

Cream butter and add 2 cups sugar and egg white alternately. Beat well after each addition.

Beat in remaining sugar and rum and cognac alternately, beating well after each addition. Add the vanilla. Store in a screw-top jar. Serve at room temperature.

Yield: 4 cups or 16 servings.

Craig Claiborne's Favorites From N. Y. Times
Recipes, restaurants, tools, techniques, people and places.

Copyright 1975

Thought you might enjoy seeing this recipe. It really sounds good to me.

 
What an interesting question. I have my grandmother's old book from the 'turn of the century' I

would guess. So I'll take a look at both.

Hmmm. Don't we just get the fascinating possibilities going on this site

 
Christmas pud

Richard, you might try looking at the BBC Good Food website (www.bbcgoodfood.com) (Good Food is the cooking magazine of the BBC) and check out their recipes for Christmas pudding and brandy butter. Could give you some ideas.
cheers, Bonnie
PS Another invaluable resource is Delia Smith at deliaonline.com

 
Shaun, I keep re-reading this recipe

and find it fascinating. A 10-day method just appeals to me on so many levels. Do you have any info on what happens during the 10 days, as opposed to just dumping in the hootch and baking on the same day? LOL

 
You really got me going last night. I started looking for the recipe & could not

find it anywhere. Then I started thinking that making it for Christmas would be a special tribute to my mom this particular year.

The 3rd time I looked in my grandmother's fragile old
Boston Cooking-School Cookbook, I found a scrap of paper with my mother's recipe for Carrot Pudding:

1 c. suet
1 c. potatoes
1 c. carrots (she grated them)
1 c. brown sugar (she preferred the lighter)
1 1/2 c. flour
1 c. currants
1 c. raisins
1/2 t. salt
1/2 t. cloves
1/2 t. cinnamon
1 t. baking soda
1/2 t. nutmeg
1 egg
1/2 c. butter
3. T. mixed peel.

Cook for 3 hours. I think what she did was wrap the pudding in cheesecloth, then stuff it all into jam cans. Putting the lid on tightly, she cooked it slowly in a water bath. She was a painfully frugal person, so buying a special container to cook this in, would have been out of the question, even for the 50 years she made it annually.

I'm guessing that she grated the potatoes as well.

We always ate it with a simple sauce of brown sugar, butter, flour, cream, vanilla (that was my job to make).

So glad you asked for this. I think I would be very sad not to have her recipe.

 
What a wonderful find!

And such an unusual recipe. I am so happy that you found the recipe. I've done that so many times--knowing I have a recipe written down somewhere, but can't put my hands on it. And I'll probably turn up the plum pudding recipe that started all of this over the weekend as I continue rummaging through books and files as I plan my Victorian Christmas Eve Feast!

 
thanks! I was just going to ask, why no plums in plum pudding.

The first recipe had currant jelly, and I thought maybe the English used their good plum jam.

 
Shaun, this reads so like all the puds I have had good relationships with over the years....BUT I...

still don't really like all the dried fruit 'specially raisins,(yes I KNOW wine comes from the same fruit) so I make my pud with dates
dried cranberries, dried apricots and even dried berries. I am going to try this recipe this year I think...I usually soak my fruit in S.A brandy...it is simply the best (even my French friends like it most) and then up the brandy to a cup after draining. But I have not added any liquor daily ...so I am going to try this one....Thanks!!!!!!

 
My dad's answer ...

"I guess it's like any other recipe where the ingredients are left together – the flavours meld."

 
Slight yield revision

My dad reports that this in fact fills 10 "standard-size" pudding bowls, not 6. But he says the recipe is easily halved. (Remember, though, they get better with time.)

 
My dad's comment on his answer ...

First, note that the correct yield is 10 "standard-size" puddings, not 6, but the recipe, he says, is easily halved. But because they last a long time, if you don't give too many away you should have enough to keep you going for close to a decade.

He confesses to now using a different recipe, which I can post if you like. The ingredients and quantities are pretty much the same (though, curiously, with twice as many eggs), but it sits for only 24 hours, not 10 days. He says, "Either way, the flavours are intense, and I don't notice a difference between the two."

 
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