Eve’s pudding

I don’t remember my mum making Eve’s pudding, but I remember hearing the name so maybe when I went to visit friends or aunties I had it there. To be honest when I wrote about it in the novel I’m working on, I couldn’t quite remember what it was, I think confusing it with queen of puddings.

I found this recipe from the 1860’s

Eve’s Pudding

• 6 large juicy apples, pared, cored, and chopped  fine
• 6 oz breadcrumbs
• 6 eggs, beaten
• 3-4 oz sugar
• zest of ½ a lemon

1. mix all the ingredients well
2. steam for 3 hours
3. serve with sweet sauce

If I remember Eve’s pudding at all I remember it baked in the oven, not as a boiled pudding. Another 1860’s recipe calls it Mother Eve’s pudding, and again that rang a bell.. might a granny or an old great-aunt have called it that?

Mother Eve’s Pudding

• 6 eggs well beaten
• 6 large apples chopped fine,
• 6 oz. of bread crumbs as fine as dust
• 6 oz of currants well washed
• 5 oz of sugar
• some salt and nutmeg

1. .boil for three hours in a mould
2. serve with ginger sauce.

All that boiling! It sounds a nice set of ingredients and served with a ginger sauce sounds splendid! A recipe from the 1870’s is much the same as regards boiling time, but with different ingredients:

Eve’s Pudding – suet, bread-crumbs, currants, apples, sugar; six eggs,  lemon zest, nutmeg, allspice and a glass of brandy!

In 1882 I at last find a recognisable recipe:

Eve’s Pudding

• 6 oz butter
• 6 oz sifted flour
• 6 oz sugar
• 4 eggs, separated
• 1 oz ground almonds
• zest of 1 lemon

1. beat the butter to a cream and add flour and sugar
2. add beaten yolks
3. gently fold in beaten egg whites
4. add ground almonds, lemon zest
5. fill patty tins with the mixture
6. bake for 30 mins
7. serve with a sweet fruit sauce

 

This seems the perfect recipe (except there is no oven temperature) – but where are the apples?!!