Sussex Pudding - does anyone know the recipe?

[Mark]

Sussex pudding: I know how to eat it but don’t know how to make it.

I haven’t had any for over twenty years and I wondered if any of your readers can help with the recipe.

Basically it was made with flour, baking powder and water, and boiled in a cloth, the finished product being shaped more like a humbug, roughly eight inches (20 cm) long and three inches (8 cm) round.

Sussex pudding was eaten with a main meal, in slices; pieces were eaten either dry and or used as a gravy mopper-upper. Any slices left over were fried next morning for breakfast with bacon and egg.

My mother was taught the method by her mother-in-law but we have now lost the recipe.

I hope someone can help us.

Mr & Mrs R F Wooberry

[Mark]

Being born, brought up and schooled in the Sussex village of Plumpton Green during and after World War Two, I have good memories of suet or Sussex pudding. Large slices soaked in Bovril gravy with home-grown vegetables helped the meat ration along; it was a staple diet in my home. My grandmother always made this suet pudding, boiling it over the range fire. Half was eaten with the main meal and the other half with jam for dessert.

Sussex Pudding - basic recipe:
Half weight of suet to flour (I use self raising)
Mix to a firm dough with water.
For sweet dough add sugar and mixed dried fruit, thus making Spotted Dick (or Dog), Place in a cloth and steam for two hours.
For savoury, add mixed herbs, form into balls and drop into a stew to boil for the last 20-30 minutes. I know of no better meal than an oxtail stew with herby dumplings.

Sussex Pond Pudding:
Line a greased basin with thickly rolled dough, leaving enough for a lid.
Drop in a good sized lemon, pack round with Demerara sugar and butter,
Add a little brandy if liked and put on the lid.
Cover with greaseproof paper and a cloth and steam for two to three hours.
Discard the lemon, as the juices will have melted with the crust.

This is a really delicious pudding. I can remember being sent up to Gallops the butcher for six pennyworth of suet for these puddings but of course nowadays it comes in packets already chopped.

Having left Sussex many years ago and becoming a farmer’s wife in Devon, I have fed all our farm staff during our fifty years in farming and the puddings were all very well received – the boys never went hungry.

Mrs Dawn Carter, Honiton, Devon