MRS. HERFORD's (1911) ENGLISH PLUM PUDDING (Part 1)

FRUIT SOAKING in NAPOLEON BRANDY

Mrs. Crachit , eat your heart out. This is Mrs. Herford's English Christmas Pudding, circa 1911, with a few changes to bring it into the 21st centuy. Mrs. Herford was a good friend of my mother's. They grew up together in Behthune, Saskatchewan, went to the same one room school house, ran the fields together, and their mother's made this every Christmas. I've made it once, a long time ago, but since we've been watching Charles Dickens "Christmas Carol" , in all possible versions, we've a got a hankering for the same pudding that the Crachits longed for, on Christmas day. I've split it into two segments, since the boiling process takes up to 6 hours........so here goes the first part.

MRS. HERFORD’S ENGLISH PLUM PUDDING (Powell River 1930. Original recipe circa 1911) (Mrs. Herford was a good friend of  mum’s, from Bethune Saskatchewan. One year, when Mrs. Herford was a child, she caught her hand in a grain auger, and lost a finger ……I thought she was pretty cool, when I met her. ) Updated recipe for 2011….

¼ lb flour, ½ lb brown sugar, ½ lb fine bread crumbs, pinch salt
½ cup crumbled margarine ( used to be beef suet)
3 eggs (eggs used to be preserved in straw, and doled out, as if they were gold)
12 oz dark raisins, 6 oz golden raisins, ½ lb cranberries
1/3 cup orange juice and peel from one orange
1/3 cup lemon juice
1/3 cup Napoleon brandy, or other good booze
1 apple chopped fine
¾ cup chopped almonds
1 tsp cinnamon, ½ tsp each nutmeg, cloves, allspice,
Enough MILK to make a moist batter……(You have to guess at this point)

Soak fruit and nuts in booze, orange juice, lemon juice and peel (see above pic)

Grease and line pudding bowl.

Use a scale to measure ingredients...

Beat rest of ingredients  together with enough milk to be a slippery batter.

Put into greased basins. Cover. Steam in large kettle on upturned, small metal bowl for about 6-8 hours. More is better. Do not let batter get wet. Add more boiling water as water evaporates.

Pudding basinon upturned metal bowl in large pot with boiling water half way up sides......

 Big pot, with pudding basin inside, as it bubbles and burps, for about 6 hours......................next installment will be the pudding "Oh the pudding, singing in the copper".