Highbridge, Somerset in the UK during 1898 through 1911

#20 Crocus Pudding

Ingredients: 1 pint milk, 2 tablespoonfuls cornflour, ¼ lb. ratifia biscuit biscuits, 6oz castor sugar, grated rind & juice of 2 lemons. 

Boil milk and flour which has already been mixed with cold milk.  Stir & let boil 3 or four minutes.  Move from fire & add sugar and lemons.  Put half ratifias at bottom of dish cover with mixture & then decorate with preserved cherries. 

 

Ratifia Biscuits; a small macaroon type of cookie that are almond flavored.  Also made to be eaten with ratifia wine, which was originally made with bitter almonds; Amaretto is a ratifia liquor.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ratafia

“In 1789, The Complete Confectioner, by Frederick Nutt, a confectioner, formerly apprenticed with Domenico Negri,[19] an Italian who opened “The Pot and Pineapple” confectionery shop at 7-8 Berkeley Square, London, founded 1757, included a recipe, “No. 29. Ratafia Biscuits”:

Take half a pound of sweet almonds, and half a pound of bitter almonds, and pound them in a mortar very fine, with whites of eggs; put three pounds of powdered sugar, mix it well with the whites of eggs, to the proper thickness into a bason ; put two or three sheets of paper on the plate you bake on ; take your knife, and the spaddle (spurtle) made of wood, and drop them on the paper, let them be round, and about the size of a large nutmeg ; put them in the oven, which must be quick, let them have a fine brown, and all alike, but be careful they are not burnt at bottom, else they will not come off the paper when baked; let them be cold before you take them off.”

A spurtle (called a Spaddle in the Ratifia Biscuits recipe above) is a cooking utensil made of wood, that is not quite a spoon and not a spatula but actually a bit of both.  You can find then in your specialty cooking stores, or lately from your local grocery store, I just found this very set at mine.

“Spurtles were traditionally designed in the Highlands of Scotland in the 15th century, this unique kitchen tool was originally used to stir oatmeal, soup, stew, and broth.”

“The Northern English dialect had a word spartle that meant “stirrer”. The modern West Germanic and North Germanic languages, as well as Middle English, also have spurtle cognates that refer to a flat-bladed tool or utensil.”

“Definition of a spurtle; chiefly Scotland: a wooden stick for stirring porridge.”    

Bitter Almonds – BE VERY CAREFUL!! If these are not processed correctly, they can kill you with a form of cyanide.  These are not actually almonds, even though they are classified as a nut, they are a drupe which is a seed encased in an outer shell. (Peanuts are also a drupe.)  Bitter almonds are more useful in culinary preparations instead of the snacking sweet almonds that we see and use for most things in the U.S.  But they must be cooked in some way to be edible! Do not eat raw!

They are smaller and with more pointed tips, and a bit darker in color. 

“Interestingly enough, raw bitter almonds contain certain toxins that can be lethal to humans, even in small doses. If you eat 7-10 bitter almonds that haven’t been processed (heated, boiled, baked etc.), you will consume a toxic level of hydrocyanic acid. For this reason, the raw form of bitter almonds is prohibited in certain countries, including the United States. Once a bitter almond is treated, however, the hydrocyanic acid is removed or neutralized, making these almonds safe to use in culinary applications.”

In a lot of the old recipes, you will see “Bitter Almonds” called for; it is easier to just substitute the sweet ones we have access to, than try to acquire the bitter ones; so, you can be certain they will not poison you. 

Castor Sugar – Also known as Baker’s Sugar: It is not very commonly used in the U.S. and may be very hard to find.  Castor sugar is a superfine grain about halfway between your regular table sugar and powdered or confectioners’ sugar.  It is used in England for cakes and cookies; you may be able to find it online, but the price may be prohibitive.   You can make your own with a little work, by adding it to a blender and processing it to a finer granule, but be careful, if you go too far it will become powdered sugar which is too fine a grain.  A suggestion on Bob’s Red Mill Website is to keep a towel over the top of the blender so the dust made in the process will not escape into the air and go everywhere. 

It is the perfect sugar for meringues, as it is a finer grain so it blends better and make the meringue lighter and fluffier. 

Take a look at all the other recipes from this book.

https://kitchenrecipetreasures.com/?s=Britain+puddings

I really like unusual sounding recipes, especially those that have a sense of humor with them.  These stuck out to me in this book from Highbridge, Somerset in the UK during 1898 through 1911.  It is the first recipe in this book, “Old Lady Biscuits”, that just sets the whole thing as a fun read, with lots of interesting history and recipes. 

Old Lady Biscuits recipe for sale in my ebay store

https://www.ebay.com/itm/254913192389?hash=item3b5a02a1c5:g:07wAAOSwFiZgWU6W

From this cookbook we get a trip around the United Kingdom through the pudding recipes.  There are all kinds of them listed; 37 different puddings in this book; I will list the once a month so you can enjoy trying them one at a time.   In England a “Pudding” is not always what we in the US would call a “Pudding”.  Today if I say pudding, we think of things like the Jell-O pudding cups you can get in the store or the powdered stuff you can get in boxes.  In Great Britain, it is often whatever is for dessert that day, in their media shows you will quite often hear someone asking “What is for Pudding today?” meaning what are they having for dessert.   

But we also get the lovely and famous “Christmas Plumb Pudding”; that is only a small part in the family of “Puddings”.  They go back into history, it would be difficult to pinpoint where they originally came from, the boiled pudding can be seen in all kinds of cook books going back to the Romans and all throughout the history of Great Britain and Europe. 

Puddings can be sweet or savory and made from just about anything you can think of; meats, fruits, nuts, grains, spices and quite often they involve some sort of alcohol.  Even the famous Scottish Traditional Dish of a Haggis, which is a blend of grains, oatmeal, organ meats and sometimes fruits, then cooked in the stomach of a sheep can be considered a “Pudding”. 

All trough out the cookbooks I have from the 1800’s and the early 1900’s, there are pudding recipes of all kinds.  I think they have become a forgotten food that today we consider an “Old-fashioned” something that Grandma made.  Better left to the past, than try something that is actually a pretty good tasting food.  Yes, they take a bit of preparation and cooking time, but we made one in the slow cooker last Christmas that was very easy, and we didn’t have to watch it the whole time it was boiling.  It was very good and remarkably fun to make.  You do not even have to use a pudding mold; (although I have a few of them as part of my collection of cooking utensils and tools) we used a simple glass bowl covered with foil and tied with a string to make a pudding in the crock pot.  Online there are all kinds of instructions to use the crock pot as a tool in making them, just google “Crock pot Puddings” and they will come up. 

There are several different handwriting types in this book, at least four of them.  This book could have been handed down through several generations of a family, not many names are included and I will list them as they come up; I got it from someone in Highbridge, Somerset, this may not be where it originated so I cannot trace the names exactly to this area.  There are only two dates that I have found in it; 1898 and 1911; so, it could date to the mid 1800’s and into the early 1900’s, there are two War cake recipes in it, which could put it into the 1940’s.   The only full name in the book is Nancy Baines or Barnes. 

There are no baking temperatures listed in these recipes; during this time, it was assumed you would know how to put together a recipe without directions and what temperature to cook or bake them at.  You gauged your oven temps through experience of working in the kitchen next to your mother and other relatives throughout your childhood and youth.  You learned methods, techniques and timing so you never needed to have it written down in the cook books or diaries passed through each generation of the family. 

Oven temperatures are seldom given in the old books and recipes; most times the only say something like a slow oven or quick oven.  These are the equlivent to today’s oven temperatures;

A very slow oven equals 250 to 275 degrees.

A slow oven equals 300 to 325 degrees.

A moderate oven equals 350 to 375 degrees.

A hot or quick oven equals 375 to 400 degrees.

A very hot oven equals 400 to 450 degrees. 

Suet is going to be a common ingredient in these puddings, there is a difference between suet and lard; best to not substitute one for the other.   Breadcrumbs are also a common ingredient, the pudding was a common way to use up old dry or stale bread; the phrase “Waste not, want not” was taken very seriously, food was expensive and none was wasted if at all possible.   During the years of the World Wars, one and two, again food was expensive and rationed; you used everything you had and made due without things you could not get; such as butter, meat, eggs, sugar and others. 

Suet – It is the hard, raw fat from beef or mutton found around the kidneys and loins.  The high smoke point and fast melting temperature makes it perfect for deep frying and pastry making.  After rendering into tallow, it is used in cooking and baking such things as the traditional English Christmas pudding.  The long process of rendering it down to tallow, involves melting and simmering several times, cooling it down all to refine the suet to a usable state.  Suet requires refrigeration if it to be stored for any length of time. 

Do not confuse suet with all fat from the animals it can only be found around the heart and kidneys of cattle and sheep.  Nor should it be confused with drippings, which is the melted fats in the pan when cooking the meat. 

Pre-packaged suet that can be found today in the markets is mixed with flour and dehydrated to make it stable at room temperature. Some care is needed to use this for the old recipes, the proportions of flour to fat will alter the stated recipe.  Fresh suet can be bought in markets and must be coarsely grated to use; then must be refrigerated prior to use and used within a few days of buying it. 

Lard – Is a semi-solid white fat from pigs used as a cooking fat or a shortening.  It is prized for its properties of making pastries light and flaky, replacing butter in the recipes.  The leaf lard is from the “flare” visceral fat surrounding the kidneys and inside the loin.  With very little pork flavor it is perfect for use in baked goods; and since the early 1990 when trans-fats in partially hydrogenated vegetable oils became a concern for your health, it has had a resurgence of popularity as a “Natural” food. 

As well as baked goods It has been used in culinary recipes for centuries, often for game meats to add fat in the cooking process to very low-fat meats such as venison; by “Larding” a roast you insert the lard into the meat so it doesn’t dry out during cooking. 

Visit my ebay store to find some great kitchen utensils and collectables to go along with these vintage and antique recipes.

https://www.ebay.com/str/ozziesattic720?_trksid=p2047675.l2563