Old Fashioned Christmas Recipes From Colonial America

As usual at this season, Ladies’ magazines were filled with recipes for puddings, pies, cakes and tarts.
One can almost imagine the sweet aromas that permeated households across the country as baked goods, made from the freshest fruit and spices, simmered in well-tended hearths.

And what would Christmas be without Plum Pudding?


Rich Plum Pudding

• Stone carefully one pound of the best raisins
• Wash and pick one pound of currants
• Chop very small one pound of fresh beef suet [butter]
• Blanch [scald or parboil in water or steam in order to remove the skin or whiten] and chop small, or pound, two ounces of sweet almonds and one ounce of bitter ones [regular almonds can be used without altering the flavor]
• Mix the whole well together:
• One pound of sifted flour, and the same weight of crumb of bread soaked in milk, then squeezed dry and stirred with a spoon until reduced to a mash, before it is mixed with the flour
• Cut in small pieces two ounces each of preserved citron [the preserved rind of the citron used esp. in cakes and puddings], orange, and lemon-peel
• Add a quarter of an ounce of mixed spice; quarter of a pound of moist sugar should be put into a basin, with eight eggs, and well beaten together with a three-pronged fork
• Stir this with the pudding, and make it of a proper consistence with milk. Remember that it must not be made too thin, or the fruit will sink to the bottom, but be made to the consistence of good thick batter. Two wineglassfuls of brandy [one cup] should be poured over the fruit and spice, mixed together in a basin
• Allow to stand three or four hours before the pudding is made, stirring them occasionally
• It must be tied in a cloth, and will take five hours of constant boiling [this requires a double boiler and cool until heavily thickened
• Cook for about one to two hours until it will turn out of the pan and stand on its own]
• When done, turn it out on a dish, sift loaf-sugar [powdered sugar] over the top, and serve it with wine-sauce in a boat, and some poured round the pudding.
• The pudding will be of considerable size, but half the quantity of materials, used in the same proportion, will be equally good.

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