Vegetable Plum Pudding is a traditional British recipe, based on Eliza Acton's recipe of 1845, for a classic plum (dried fruit) boiled pudding made from a potato and carrot base with flour, currants, raisins, suet and sugar that's flavoured with nutmeg and bound with eggs and which is traditionally cooked in a cloth. The full recipe is presented here and I hope you enjoy this classic British version of: Vegetable Plum Pudding.
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This is a traditional British recipe redacted from Eliza Acton's 1845 volume Modern Cookery, the first classic Victorian cookbook.
Original Recipe
VEGETABLE PLUM PUDDING.
(Cheap and good.)
Mix well together one pound of smoothly-mashed potatoes, half a pound of carrots boiled quite tender, and beaten to a paste, one pound of flour, one of currants, and one of raisins (full weight after they are stoned), three quarters of a pound of sugar, eight ounces of suet, one nutmeg, and a quarter of a teaspoonful of salt. Put the pudding into a well-floured cloth, tie it up very closely, and boil it for four hours. The correspondent to whom we are indebted for this receipt says, that the cost of the ingredients does not exceed half a crown, and that the pudding is of sufficient size for a party of sixteen persons. We can vouch for its excellence, but as it is rather apt to break when turned out of the cloth, a couple of eggs would perhaps improve it. It is excellent cold. Sweetmeats, brandy, and spices can be added at pleasure.
Mashed potatoes, 1 lb.; carrots, 8 oz.; flour, 1 lb,; suet, 1/2 lb.; sugar, 3/4 lb.; currants and raisins, 1 lb. each; nutmeg, 1 ; little salt : 4 hours.
Modern Redaction
Ingredients:
500g peeled potatoes, boiled and mashed until smooth
250g carrots, peeled, boiled until tender and mashed until smooth
500g plain flour
500g currants
500g seedless raisins
120g brown sugar
200g shredded suet
1 nutmeg, finely grated
1/4 tsp fine salt
2 eggs, beaten
Method:
Combine the potatoes, carrots, flour, currants, raisins, sugar suet, nutmeg and salt in a bowl. Mix thoroughly to combine then add the eggs and stir until completely incorporated.
Take your pudding cloth and fold in two. Flour it liberally then turn the pudding mixture into the centre. Take the ends of the cloth and bring them together, so that the pudding sits rather like a cannon-ball in the middle. Tie the loose ends of the cloth securely together with string (leave plenty of string overhanging.
Bring a very large pan of water to a boil. Lower the pudding into this then tie it to the handle of the pan so that it does not sit on the base of the pan (otherwise it may burn). Add a lid, and continue to boil the pudding for 4 hours (top up the water as needed with boiling water, and ensure the pudding does not boil dry).
When cooked, remove the pudding from the pan and allow to drain a little before unwrapping and serving. Accompany with any sweet pudding sauce.
