 | |
| Type | Pudding |
|---|---|
| Place of origin |  United Kingdom |
| Main ingredients | Suet,dried fruit,flour,sugar,milk,baking powder |
Spotted dick is a traditionalBritish steamedpudding, historically made withsuet anddried fruit (usuallycurrants orraisins) and often served withcustard.
Non-traditional variants include recipes that replace suet with other fats (such as butter), or that include eggs to make something similar to a sponge pudding or cake.[1]
Spotted is a reference to thedried fruit in the pudding (which resembles spots).[2] The worddick refers to pudding. In late 19th centuryHuddersfield, for instance, a glossary of local terms stated: "Dick, plain pudding. If withtreacle sauce, treacle dick."[3] This sense ofdick may be related to the worddough.[4] In the variant namespotted dog,dog is a variant form ofdough.[5]
The dish is first attested inAlexis Soyer'sThe Modern Housewife or, Ménagère, published in 1849,[6] in which he described a recipe for "Plum Bolster, or Spotted Dick – Roll out two pounds of paste [...] have someSmyrna raisins well washed".[7]
The name "spotted dog" first appeared in 1855, in C.M. Smith's "Working-men's Way in the World" where it was described as a "very marly species of plum-pudding". This name, along with "railway cake", is most common in Ireland where it is made more similar to asoda bread loaf with the addition of currants.[2]
ThePall Mall Gazette reported in 1892 that "the Kilburn Sisters [...] daily satisfied hundreds of dockers with soup and Spotted Dick".[3]
