Alternative Christmas Puddings.

Just in case you are behind schedule with your puddings, here are a couple of alternative ideas for you. As usual, they have been added to the Vintage Christmas Recipes archive.

The following recipe was found in a Winnipeg newspaper of 1914. It sounds like a nice change from heavier puddings.

Cranberry Snowballs.
Sift together two cupfuls of flour, a pinch of salt and three teaspoonfuls of baking powder; add sufficient sweet milk to make a soft batter, one cupful of sugar, one and a half cupfuls of chopped cranberries dredged with flour and two well beaten eggs. Pour the mixture into buttered pudding cups, and steam for two hours. Garnish with sprigs of holly and serve with hard sauce.

And from Eliza Acton, a mid-nineteenth century plum pudding with potatoes and carrots:

VEGETABLE PLUM PUDDING
(Cheap and good.)
Mix well together one pound of smoothly-mashed potatoes, half a pound of carrots boiled quite tender, and beaten to a paste, one pound of flour, one of currants, and one of raisins (full weight after they are stoned), three quarters of a pound of sugar, eight ounces of suet, one nutmeg, and a quarter-teaspoonful of salt.
Put the pudding into a well-floured cloth, tie it closely, and boil it for four hours. The correspondent to whom we are indebted for this receipt says, that the cost of the ingredients does not exceed half a crown, and that the pudding is of sufficient size for a party of sixteen persons.
We can vouch for its excellence, but as it is rather apt to break when turned out of the cloth, a couple of eggs would perhaps improve it. Sweetmeats, brandy, and spices can be added at pleasure.
Mashed potatoes, 1 Ib.; carrots, 8 ozs.; flour, 1 Ib.; suet, ½ Ib.; sugar, ¾ Ib.; currants and raisins, 1 Ib. each ; nutmeg, 1; little salt: 4 hours.
[From: Modern Cookery for Private Families. Eliza Acton, 1845]