How to Make Swiss Baskets - The Victorian Way

[Music] uh [Music] ah you find me just finishing off writing my christmas cards they are a little expensive to send but i think they're a wonderful way to let people know i'm thinking of them this one's for my sister sarah she's also a cook but i must get on we're all very busy making plum puddings and mince meat even fannie's busy making butter in the dairy i'm going to make swiss baskets a lovely dish to have between the meat and the plum pudding but before the ices for this recipe you will need butter sugar eggs lemon zest flour red currant jelly pistachio nuts cream cherries and angelica first i'm preparing my molds i've already buttered them so now i'm going to sprinkle them with a mixture of flour and sugar i'm using dario molds fluted dario molds but you can use any small pudding molds or even coffee cups now i'm going to make my castle pudding mix and to begin i'm going to cream the sugar and butter together adding the zest as i go [Laughter] now the castle puddings are only going to use about half of my mix so i'm going to think ahead and use the rest for making small cakes for afternoon tea now i'm going to add my eggs one at a time leading up to christmas the servants can be busy across the estate and so we often bring in help from the local village retired servants or married women or one of mr barker the gamekeeper's sons of which he has many now i'm going to fold in the flour now i'm going to fill my moulds two thirds of the way up christmas day itself should be quite peaceful perhaps their daughter or guster or mr strutt might come up from london lady monson lady braybrook's sister might be expected and the rest of this mix i'm going to give to marianne so she can make the small cakes there we are they're now ready for the [Music] oven [Music] now that these have properly cooled i can turn these castle puddings into swiss baskets if they've risen you'll need to cut them off so they're nice and flat mine are already flat i'm going to cut out the middle of each one these aren't christmas dishes as such but i think the colors will complement the flowers and the greenery on the christmas table and lady braver was very complementary when i last made them now i'm going to brush them with red currant jelly marianne is it hot yes mrs croco now you can go and whip the cream come to think of it there aren't very many specific christmas dishes all of the houses i worked at before had asparagus and palestine soup that's jerusalem artichoke nessaro pudding was very popular at langley hall the last house i worked at they also liked roast swan they're turkey of course and goose poultry's popular throughout december now i'm going to roll them in the pistachios [Music] now that marianne has whipped the cream i'm going to fill each basket in the middle and add a cherry on top [Music] so and to make them look a little bit more like baskets i'm going to add a tiny strip of angelica for the handle angelica is from a plant that's easily as tall as myself and it has a hollow stem angelica is green we bought this from the grocer in walden i suspect a little coloring has been added to make it look this vibrant and there we are swiss baskets oh and merry christmas [Music] you

Channel: English Heritage

Views: 792,765

Keywords: English Heritage, history

Id: TWX8lnKMWMo

Length: 10min 41sec (641 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 25 2020