College Puddings

College puddings?  Yes, an odd name for these funny, fruity little fritters.  I'm a member of a Facebook group called Lambs' Ears Cookbook Club; last month our book was Pride and Pudding by Regula Ysewijn.  The book is a history of British Puddings, Savoury and Sweet - and there seems to be a lot of suet involved :-)  Fortunately I have bags of suet mix in my freezer thanks to the botched dumplings I tried to make some months ago.  Remember that saga? :-)

But here we have a recipe with suet that worked out just fine - delicious and moreish.  They didn't last long at all.  And I still have copious amounts of suet mix in the freezer, ready for another batch of these plumptious morsels.  I think they're called College Puddings because they were served at an Oxford College for supper, the original recipe appearing in a book by Eliza Smith The Compleat Housewife, 1737.  And still delicious!

cute, sweet morsels

Makes 9-10:

ingredients:

100g./3.5 oz fresh breadcrumbs (bought or homemade)

50g./1.75 oz shredded suet - see Notes below

50g./1.75 oz raw (caster or white) sugar

1/2 tsp ground nutmeg

a pinch of sea salt

2 SMALL eggs or 1 large egg, lightly beaten - see Notes below

2 tsp Sherry (or Madeira or spiced Rum)

10g./⅜ oz/ or 1 very heaped tsp currants or sultanas, along with 1 tsp (candied) mixed peel or lemon peel; soaked in a big 20 mL/⅔ oz brandy or rum for 20 minutes, then drained off  (drink the rum - tee hee)

28g./1 oz glacé ginger, chopped finely (optional)

28g./1 oz/4 Tbs almond meal (if needed)

butter and oil for frying

icing sugar for dusting 

Method:

Grab a large mixing bowl, and tip in the breadcrumbs, suet, sugar, nutmeg and salt; give it a good stir to combine

Add the egg(s) and Sherry; if a thin mixture, just mix it all together well.  Regula says this is a dry dough, but will come together with a bit of kneading (my 'dough' was a right old soupy mix)

Leave your dough/batter/porridge to rest for 15 minutes

Fold your currants/sultanas, peel and glacé ginger into the mix

Add the almond meal if needed

Then tease out golf ball-sized amounts, which you flatten slightly (or sling into the pan with a spoon depending on your dough's moisture content :-) )

Heat 20 grams butter and 1 tsp veg. oil in a large frying pan - or just use clarified butter alone if you have that (I didn't)

Fry your balls till golden-brown, and cooked through - see Notes

Serve as a side dish, or with a dusting of icing sugar (says Regula) - I am curious as to what you would serve this with as a side dish :-)

Notes:

It can be difficult to get actual suet (try your local butcher) but as I had mega amounts of suet mix in my freezer I used that instead - so instead of the 50g. of shredded suet, I used 30 grams of butter, and 30 grams of the suet and flour mixture I made up ages ago

As my mixture was so wet, I just used a tablespoon to dollop it into the frying pan, and cooked on each side for several minutes

Regula mentions a similar recipe by William Kitchiner from 1822; he says he prefers them baked in patty pans, so I tried that too.  I put a few in the oven to bake at 185C/365F for about 12-15 minutes - both sorts equally delicious!  But you can feel virtuous when eating the baked version, if that's your jam :-)

Regula actually joined our Cookbook Club, and told us that in her next book, she has/will give grammage for the eggs, as more than one person has mentioned that this was a very wet mixture rather than a dough :-)

first grab some bread

and blitz till you have breadcrumbs :-)  (Or buy some)

gather your ingredients

I used a pastry cutter to cut in the butter and suet mix

stir in the fruit

into the oven they go (there were 3)

frying up in butter and oil

or baked!  I love the heart-shaped one at the bottom

and we demolished the dusted fritters/puddings :=)

Princess Pia wrapping up a couple to take home

© Sherry M.