A Good Northamptonshire Pudding

Cover of Women's Institutes' Recipe Book, 1933

We’re not sure why, but recently, Northampton Museums and Art Gallery has been offered a good number of recipe books as donations! As a result, we thought we’d share some of the contents with you. Here is the recipe for a Good Northamptonshire Pudding taken from The Northamptonshire Federation of Women’s Institutes’ Recipe Book, 1933. This simple recipe is a steamed pudding flavoured with raspberry jam:

A Good Northamptonshire Pudding: 2ozs. butter, 4ozs. of flour, 3 ozs of castor sugar, and 2 eggs and 1 tablespoon of raspberry jam.

Cream the butter and sugar, let it stand for 15 minutes, then add the flour eggs alternately and lastly mix in the jam. Steam for 2 hours.

Cogenhoe WI contributed this recipe to the book.

Northamptonshire Recipes – Eggs and Bacon Jelly

Advertisements in the Northamptonshire Cookery Book

Amongst the recent donations to Northampton Museums is a well thumbed copy of the ‘Northamptonshire County Cookery Book’. The book is filled with fascinating and ornate advertisements for businesses like ‘E Dunton and Co, Milliners and Costumiers of Gold Street’ and ‘Abel & Sons, Ltd, Parade’ promoting the incomparably priced ‘Brooklyn’ piano as well as useful tips on cleaning gilt picture frames and making your own furniture polish.

The book also contains a myriad of recipes donated by the people of Northampton town, county and beyond! Today we thought we’d give you a taste of one such recipe:

Eggs and Bacon Jelly
Make two lots of jelly, one milk, the other bright red. Procure a square dish 3 or 4 inches deep, pour in a thick layer of white jelly, leave until nearly set, then pour in alternate thin layers of red and white, letting it set between.

Put some white jelly into flat tart tins, and drop half apricots on the top to look like poached eggs.

When cold, take a wet knife and cut down through jelly in thin slices and spread on a dish to represent bacon, then slide the apricots in jelly onto the bacon. If liked, a little whipped cream can be put around the yolk of egg.