Steamed puddings are a traditional holiday food which once were slow-cooked on a wood or coal stove that was used for both heating and cooking. They are less popular now that our stoves aren’t constantly operating; but there are some wonderful hundred-year-old steamed pudding recipes that worth the time. For example, English Pudding is a tasty dessert favored with cloves and other cozy spices. It is delightful when served warm with Hard Sauce.
Here are the original recipes:
I anticipated that the Hard Sauce would be extremely thick, but smooth; however, when I followed the recipe the Hard Sauce it was so dry that it clumped somewhat. It was tasty – but just did not look quite right. I think that additional butter or water may be needed. This is the second time that I’ve made Hard Sauce using hundred year old recipes – and it did not turn out quite as I expected either time. Maybe Hard Sauce had a different consistency a hundred years ago than what it does now.
Here’s the recipe updated for modern cooks:
English Pudding with Hard Sauce
English Pudding
1/4 cup shortening
1/2 cup molasses
1/2 cup milk
2 cups flour
1/2 baking soda
1/4 ground cloves
1/2 teaspoon mace
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup raisins
Put shortening, molasses, milk, flour, baking soda, ground cloves, mace, and salt in a mixing bowl; beat until smooth. Stir in raisins.
Put the mixture in a greased steamed pudding mold*, and steam for 3 hours. Remove from mold and serve warm with Hard Sauce. (This pudding is also excellent cold without the Hard Sauce.)
*Notes: I used a 2-liter mold, but had some extra space at the top and a smaller mold could be used. BBC Good Food has an excellent video that succinctly describes how to steam a pudding (or follow the directions that come with the mold).
Hard Sauce
1 cup sugar
1/4 butter
1/4 teaspoon lemon extract
3/4 teaspoon vanilla
Cream the butter, then slowly add the sugar while stirring constantly. While continuing to stir, add the lemon extract and vanilla.
Note: To make a smoother hard sauce, additional butter or water may need to be added.
A Hundred Years Ago 
Interesting that my recipe (and several I found) use powdered sugar rather than granulated. Now I’m wondering if powdered sugar wasn’t available a hundred years ago, and if that’s what affects the texture.
I think that powdered sugar was available a hundred years ago. I know that I’ve seen old recipes that call for it.
Yumm
Many years ago this pudding was on the menu of a special holiday dinner at the Eagle Tavern in Greenfield Village, Dearborn, Michigan. The whole meal was very heavy depicting early American cooking – they worked hard so hearty meals were always in order. A fun experience!
It sounds wonderful to attend an event like this at Greenfield Village.
YES, please! A small portion tho. Oh heck, load me up.
Works for me. After all, it’s the holidays. We can worry about diets in January. 🙂
You are ever so wise!
I never heard of hard sauce, it sounds interesting.
It’s a very old-fashioned sauce.
My mother made a hard sauce, but she used whiskey in it!
My general sense is that many hard sauce recipes call for some type of alcohol. A few years ago I did a post for Steamed Chocolate Nut Pudding with Hard Sauce. It called for “brandy, wine, or vanilla.”
All three sound pretty good!
I suppose the butter was a lot richer and unlike butter nowdays. That does sound lovely though.xxx
I don’t know much about how butter is made today, but it probably is more processed than what it was a hundred years ago.
I KNOW BUTTER!!!! LOL Raised by Dairy Farmers born in the late 1880’s, you made your butter AT HOME….from YOUR cows….with a GIANT glass butter paddle churn. Local farmers would sell it in town to the general store. NO ONE bought butter where I grew up, nor buttermilk, raw milk, or cream, as every.single.person. knew a dairy farmer, WAS a dairy farmer, or bought from a dairy farmer.
It was just pure cream and a dash of salt. Grandma and I would make it, store it in large wooden tubs made from Mulberry Wood and keep it cool in the Root Cellar.
I suspect this is why some people, myself, included, pay a premium for imported butters from Ireland and Lithuania. It’s rich, fatty, and bakes superbly.
I’m English and this recipe is utterly unfamiliar to me. Well, steamed puddings are very old-school English of course, but molasses not so much. I’d never heard of hard sauce either, and reading the ingredients didn’t help. Maybe it’s one of those things that got just a bit ‘lost in translation’.
It’s fascinating how this dessert apparently morphed into some very different on this side of the Atlantic. As you said, it’s probably one of those things that got just a bit lost in the translation.
Strange about the hard sauce.
I’m still not quite sure why it didn’t turn out as I’d anticipated.
When we lived in England, our neighbor gave me her Christmas pudding recipe. We’ve had it every year since 1982. In a few days I’ll stream the pudding for this year and let it age in the refrigerator until the 25th. I add enough liquid to the hard sauce to make it flow.
Your pudding looks great. Did you like it?
Yes, the pudding was wonderful. I should make the sauce again and try tweaking it a bit.
My husband and I are massive fans of steamed puddings! I have an authentic British Pudding Steamer that I picked up when we were visiting his family in Scotland. It’s over 48 years old and used often, as soon as the weather turns brisk! Both of us are extremely familiar with Hard Sauce; we’d put Port or Sherry in ours. For tea teetotalers, we’d always have a can of Bird’s English Custard or Lemon Curd to top the pudding with. Our favourite is an ancient one: Indian Pudding, made with suet/lard, cornmeal, and molasses (plus other bits & pieces.) SO tasty!
mmm. . . these sound wonderful. It’s awesome that you have an authentic British Pudding Steamer.
I love my little Pudding Steamer. It has a lid with a hole in it that is plugged with a cork. It’s used throughout the Winter. 🙂
It sounds a bit like bread pudding which I love, especially with a bit of bourbon. Never heard of steamed pudding though. I like your modern version.
The process is different for making bread pudding -but both are really tasty.
I don’t think I’ve ever eaten English pudding..the recipe sounds good though!
I think that you’d like it.
I think I will have to try this, next time we fire up the woodstove – will be such a treat to smell the seasonings throughout the house.
You’re lucky to have a wood stove. It sounds like fun to be able to make old recipes that use authentic cooking processes.
Your comment reminds me of a time when I lived in a house with an wood-burning stove. We used it mainly for heat, but I had so much fun cooking and baking with it. And lid toast!
My girlfriend made a steamed pudding with hard sauce which I very much liked. Her hard sauce was smooth and creamy but her recipe wasn’t 100 years old. 😊
I hate to say it, but I may need to use a more modern hard sauce recipe the next time I make a steamed pudding. Something (either tastes or ingredient characteristics) has changed over the past hundred years.
I think you might be right. 😊
This entry caused me to ponder cooking speeds in a way that I hadn’t before and therefore commented on, on my own blog.
https://lexanteinternet.blogspot.com/2019/12/blog-mirror-hundred-years-ago-old.html
This recipe, I’ll note, looks good. I’m tempted to try it.
If you happen to decide to make this recipe, I think that you’d like it. I enjoyed reading the post on your blog about cooking methods and speeds across the years, and the accompanying photos were wonderful.
Looks yummy!!
Growing up with my maternal Grandmother (who was mostly English ) , we had this every Thanksgiving and Christmas ..
She made it with the hard sauce , and also a hot soft sauce which was made with milk , cornstarch and just a little bit of confectioners sugar and a couple drops of vanilla extract .
It’s nice to hear that this recipe brought back some good memories. The soft sauce your grandmother made sounds like it would be very nice with this pudding.