Every well-used cookbook has a page that naturally falls opens from constant attention, or tell-tale food splatters or splodges that show evidence of popular use. What’s yours?

Indelible evidence

In Emma Rouse’s 1863 edition of Beeton’s book of household management, which remains in the family collection at Rouse Hill House & Farm, the carrot pudding recipe page sports orange smudges and smears that can only have come from carrots.

Autumnal glow

Capturing the golden glow of autumn, this pudding is more comforting than cake, buttery but lightly textured and fruit-rich from the addition of currants and sultanas. Containing no flour, its substance comes from breadcrumbs, butter and eggs. The original recipe calls for suet, which I have substituted with butter – see here, or below.

I find the baked version easiest to make, needing less attention than boiling a pudding on the stove, but you can steam the pudding in a bowl, tied with a cloth as instructed or sealed with foil. Serve the pudding warm with custard or cream, or at room temperature as a moist alternative to fruit cake.

Beaten-up Beeton

We can only imagine how many meals have been made from this book over the past 150 years. What’s your most well-worn and over-loved cookbook or recipe?