After watching this 1930s cartoon pudding recipe from the National Film and Sound Archives (NFSA) some time ago, I had cause to buy some Australian raisins and sultanas recently and though I would give it a go. The kitchen of our 1926 federation house no doubt witnessed several steamed puddings, but my first ever attempt was probably the worst one made here! Fortunately, the house is a little less sexist than this film. The following recipe is also available here.
Ingredients
- 1 cup caster sugar
- 110g butter
- 1 egg
- 3 tbsp milk
- 1 cup plain flour
- ½ tsp baking soda
- pinch of salt
- 1 tbsp peach jam
- ¼ cup sultanas
- ½ cup raisins
Method
- Cream the butter and sugar. Add the egg and milk and stir well. Add flour, baking soda, salt, jam, sultanas and raisins and stir to combine.
- Pour the mixture into a well-greased tin and cover with greaseproof paper.
- Place the covered tin into a saucepan of boiling water with a lid and steam for one-and-a-half hours.
There were a few issues:
- I used a Pyrex bowl instead of a tin. I had trouble putting the bowl into the saucepan because it is hard to put your hands down the inside of a pot of boiling water.
- I over-filled the pot of water and the Pyrex bowl was too shallow. The top of the pudding was soggy, but I saved this by simply cutting it off. Because the bowl was too shallow, the top overflowed the bowl.
- The greaseproof paper was saturated and did not do its job well. I read on another recipe that one should put pleats in the paper to allow the pudding to rise, and place a cloth over the paper so that it stays in place.
- Next time, I will use a stainless steel bowl we have that might just be a pudding dish. It is deep and narrow (in the shape of a traditional pudding) and has a large lip around the top that will make it easy to insert and remove from the pot. Apparently these dishes are difficult to find so that is is a bonus that we have one.