Eliza Acton's Bakewell Pudding

Elizabeth 'Eliza' Acton (1799 - 1859) was an English poet and cook who produced one of the country's first cookbooks aimed at the domestic reader rather than the professional cook or chef, Modern Cookery for Private Families. In this book she introduced the now-universal practice of listing the ingredients and suggested cooking times with each recipe. Her recipes are still in wide circulation. See the next post for one of the poems written by her, "I Love Thee".

Ingredients :
250 - 750g mixed preserves
10 eggs, yolks only
225g sugar
225g butter
ratafia (a liquer or cordial flavored with peach or cherry kernels, bitter almonds or other fruits)
lemon brandy or other flavouring, to taste

Method :
This pudding is famous not only in Derbyshire in England, but in several of the northern counties, where it is usually served on all holiday-occasions.
Line a shallow tart-dish with an inch-deep layer of several kinds of good preserve mixed together, and intermingle with them from 50 - 80g of candied citron or orange rind.
Beat well the yolks of ten eggs, and add to them gradually 225g of sifted sugar.
When they are well mixed, slowly pour in 225g of good clarified butter, and a little ratafia or any other flavour that may be preferred.
Fill the dish two-thirds full with this mixture, and bake the pudding for nearly an hour in a moderate oven.
Half the quantity will be sufficient for a small dish.
Bake in moderate oven, ¾ to 1 hour.

Note. This is a rich and expensive, but not very refined pudding. A variation of it, known in the south as an Alderman's pudding, is considered superior to it. It is made without the candied peel, and with a layer of apricot-jam only, 180g butter, 180g of sugar, the yolks of six, and the whites of two eggs.

recipe Eliza Acton bakewell pudding baking