Day 2 of our Heritage & Special Collections Advent Calendar. Today librarian Helen Skilbeck has a Christmas Pudding recipe for you. Please let us know if you give it a go.

The Leeds company Goodall, Backhouse and Co. produced a range of ‘household specialities’ including Yorkshire Relish, egg and custard powder, ginger beer powder, quinine wine and jelly squares. They produced an annual book called ‘Good Things – made, said and done for every home and household’ which included various recipes.

One of these recipes was for a Christmas pudding and it appeared in the 1893 edition. It was cooked in a mould, perhaps more usually used for jellies and other ornamental desserts, but follows a fairly standard recipe involving dried fruits, eggs, flour, sugar, beef suet, breadcrumbs, milk and a gill of rum, brandy or whisky. Unsurprisingly, each recipe was improved upon by adding a Goodall product – custard powder was the suggested improvement to the Christmas pudding shown here. 

“As an accompaniment to Christmas pudding, nothing is more palatable or seasonable than a jugful of delicious custard, made of Goodall’s custard powder, manufactured by Messrs. Goodall, Backhouse and Co. of Leeds, and sold by all grocers and oilmen throughout the United Kingdom.”

See you tomorrow for Day 3.