Carrot Pudding (Irish)

Between about 1700 and 1707, Mary Cannon, who lived with her husband, Patrick, at Tivoli House in Dun Laoghaire, County Dublin, wrote down household recipes in a "common book." The little volume disappeared for generations, resurfacing for a time in the late 1930s and then vanishing again. Cannon's great great great great granddaughter, writer Marjorie Quarton of Nenagh, County Tipperary, has all that remains of the recipes: a selection of them in her own mother's hand, copied verbatim out of the original during its brief twentieth-century reappearance. There are, notes Quarton, "quite a number of recipes for 'ffish' and 'ffleshe,' but not a single mention of potatoes." One of the more intriguing recipes is for what Cannon called "a Carriott Pudding." Her version reads "Take a stale two penny Loafe and grate it; Mingle it well with half as much Raw Carriotts grated, 8 youlkes and 4 whits of Egges well beaten, Rose water, sug'r, 2 grated Nuttmeggs and Crame. When you put it in ye Dish you bake it in, put in half pound Melted Butter, sture well & soe bake it." This is my attempt at reconstructing the recipe (and adjusting quantities for modern tastes).

½ cup butter, melted (110 g)
2½ cups dry breadcrumbs (150 g)
1¼ cups raw carrot, grated (225 g)
1 cup brown sugar (200 g)
2 tsp. ground nutmeg
pinch sea salt
½ cup heavy cream (120 mL)
¼ tsp. rose water
4 eggs
4 egg yolks

Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C/180°C fan, Gas Mark 6). Grease a 1½ qt (1.5 L) baking dish with butter.

In a large bowl, combine the breadcrumbs, carrot, sugar, nutmeg, and salt, and set aside. In another large bowl, whisk together the heavy cream, butter, rosewater, and eggs and egg yolks. Add to the bread crumb mixture and stir until well combined.

Transfer the batter to the baking dish and smooth out the top with the back of a spoon.

Bake until the pudding is set and the top is golden brown, about 45 minutes.

Makes 8 servings.