Required: One pound each of beef suet, currants, sultanas, mixed peel, and Demerara sugar. Half a pound each of breadcrumbs, flour, glace cherries, muscatels, and Valencia raisins. Quarter of a pound of sweet almonds.

One ounce each of citron, bitter almonds, pistachio nuts, and baking-powder. The rinds of two oranges and lemons. One level teaspoonful of salt. Ten eggs.

Quarter of a pint of brandy. Quarter of a pint of port wine.

Chop the suet very finely, mixing it while you do so with the crumbs and flour. Clean and stalk the currants and sultanas. Stone and halve the muscatels and chop the raisins finely. Chop the peel and citron in fairly large pieces.

Put all these ingredients in a large basin with the sugar, grated lemon and orange rinds. Put the almonds and pistachio nuts in a small saucepan with cold water to cover them; bring it to the boil, and let it boil for three or four minutes, then drain off the water and skin the nuts. Shred them and add them to the other ingredients with the salt and baking-powder. Mix all the dry ingredients together. Then beat up the eggs in a basin; it is advisable to break each egg into a cup to ascertain if it is quite good before adding it to the others in the basin; add the brandy and wine to the eggs, pour these into the mixture, and mix all very thoroughly.

Have ready some well-buttered moulds or basins, put in the mixture, pressing it down well. Next take the pudding-cloths, dip each one into boiling water, dredge it well with flour, shaking off all that will not stick. Cover the moulds with the cloths, taking care to make a pleat in the cloth across the top of each pudding, so as to allow it room to swell.

Put the puddings in a pan of fast boiling water and let them boil steadily from ten to twelve hours. As the water boils away, pour into the pan more boiling water.