Spotted dick is a steamed suet pudding containing dried fruit (usually currants), commonly served with either custard or butter and brown sugar.

What is the origin of the name Spotty Dick?

Spotted Dick-Spotted or Dog; is a traditional British dessert made from suet pastry and dried fruit—namely currants. And therein lies the first clue—the currants are the 'spots'. Secondly, the suet pastry is rolled Swiss or American Jellyroll style—that represents the 'dog'.

'Possibly "pudding" became "puddink" and "puddick" and then just "dick."

The word "dick" has appeared in any number of strange places. Around the 1840s, "dick" was used to mean a type of hard cheese; when treacle sauce was added, it became "treacle dick", and finally when currants or raisins were added (looking like little spots), the "spotted_dick" was born.

The earliest recipes for spotted dick are from 1847. For non-British readers, "spotted_dick" is a boiled suet pudding, with bits of dried fruit (usually raisins or currants) that (as already noted) look like little spots.

The Oxford Companion to Food comments that, strictly speaking, "spotted_dick" is made by taking a flat sheet, spreading sugar and raisins on it, then rolling it up. A similar dessert is "spotted dog," a plain cylinder of suet paste with the raisins and currants and sugar stuck into it, so that the spots are visible on the outside. Both spotted dick and spotted dog were traditionally boiled (or even steamed) in a cloth, but nowadays they are usually baked.

The dessert is slightly different in Ireland. In Ireland in the late 1800s, the tradition of yeast-bread manufacture was not strong, so most breads were raised with bicarbonate of soda and an acid, rather than with yeast, and thus called soda breads. Thus, the spotted_dick in Ireland is sweet soda bread, with sugar, currants, and raisins, and it's also called the spotted dog or railway cake.

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