Brown bread, walnut and golden syrup steamed pudding

 For a recent dinner party I received a special request to make a golden syrup steamed pudding. I found this Ray McVinnie recipe after a search on the Cuisine website. It is just the ticket to cheer you up on a cold winters night. Trust me, they are divine! So easy to make if you have a kitchen whizz, some stale brown bread and a cup of walnuts on hand.
  As suggested, I used my (almost) redundant electric fry pan. (You can also use a bamboo dumpling steamer for the job). Using the fry pan, I had to keep a close eye on the water level and temperature in the pan. And I cooked my puddings a little longer than his 45 minutes. When checking with a skewer they were not quite done so I replaced the foil tightly and cooked them for about 10-15 minutes until I got that 'doneness'. (Is there such a word?).
  This recipe is fine for one large pudding. Steam for about 1 1/2 hours in a well covered bowl in a large saucepan with enough water to come 3/4 of the way up the bowl.
Making individual ones is a bit more of a fiddle. But when you serve these hot little gems onto a plate, they look gorgeous with all that lovely golden syrup ooooooozing over them. And they smell wonderful!
  I made the Chantilly cream to accompany my puddings, and in spite of serving six people I had a large bowl of cream left over. The good news is, the cream seems to go with anything remotely like a dessert!! Picture a banana smeared with Chantilly cream, so simple, and so lovely as a morning tea treat. Be great on a scone with raspberry jam too. Nothing gets wasted in this house!
 You can make the puddings beforehand. Leave the foil on the puddings and when required place them in a roasting dish with hot water (about half way up) and heat them in the oven for about 20 minutes on 160C.
Please try this recipe, it will take you back and remind you of your childhood and family winter puddings.

This was a pudding left over, and reheated the syrup has soaked in a bit

Ready to dig in, mmmmmmm......

Brown bread, walnuts and golden syrup steamed pudding – Ray McVinnie –Cuisine 
1 cup golden syrup
180g butter
1 cup brown sugar
3 eggs
zest of 1 lemon
1 cup flour
1 ½ teaspoons baking powder
1 cup coarsely chopped New Zealand walnut pieces
1 ½  cups fresh brown breadcrumbs, made by blitzing good-quality day-old brown sourdough in a food processor
175ml milk

Butter 6 x 250ml-capacity bowls or tea cups. Divide the golden syrup evenly among the bowls. Set aside.

Beat the butter and brown sugar together until pale and creamy. Beat in the eggs, 1 at a time, beating well after each addition.

Stir the zest, flour, baking powder, walnuts, breadcrumbs and milk into the butter mix. Spoon this mixture evenly into the bowls, on top of the golden syrup.

Cover each bowl tightly with a double layer of foil then place in a large steamer or side by side in a large frying pan with a lid.

Fill the frying pan with hot water until it comes three-quarters of the way up the sides of the bowls. Cover and bring to the boil then simmer for 45 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the middle of a pudding comes out clean.

Remove the puddings from the steamer then unmould on to serving plates. Serve with Chantilly cream.

Chantilly cream
200ml cream
150g mascarpone
1 tablespoon caster sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Put the cream, mascarpone, sugar and vanilla in a bowl then beat until the mixture holds soft peaks. Serve with the puddings.

A classic English pudding

Thinking about good wholesome food and my recent visit to England gave me the inspiration for a dessert to make for our friends last Saturday night. The weather was predicted to be wet and cold, definitely a time to bring out a great steamed pudding to warm the body and soul.
I kept weird hours during my first week home. I would 'drop like a stone' into bed at 7pm and then be awake at four in the morning ready to start the day. So it was that I found myself cooking in my nightie and slippers at 4.30am last Saturday morning.
I remembered a pudding called Spotted Dick. I had never made one. Two of my guests were originally from England (and one male guest just adores puddings) so I decided it would be perfect to make for dessert.
My research on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spotted_dick offered an explanation to the name of the pudding. It is surely an old English favourite!
I found my recipe in Jamie Oliver's Chef 2 book - 'My Mum's Spottier Dick'. Although it is extremely easy to make, I had a small challenge, as my copy of the recipe's metric conversions were all over the place. I have altered the recipe to what I considered the correct measurements and it was perfect. Trust me - this is a completely addictive pudding! And absolutely delicious with warm runny vanilla custard and a drizzle of cream.
A kitchen hint not included in Jamie's recipe - I used my mothers tip and put an enamel plate in the bottom of the boiling pan, then placed the pudding bowl into it - it stops the bottom getting overcooked or burnt (which ends up being the top of the pudding if you know what I mean). Also, my kitchen assistant had no luck finding suet in the supermarket so I replaced it with butter. I will make it with suet next time, will just have to search further afield to find some.
On the day you make it you probably need to plan to keep the morning or afternoon aside as you need to keep an eye on your boiling pot and make sure it is kept topped up with hot water while the pudding is cooking for three hours.
I hope you enjoy it as much as we did!
The recipe is super for a crowd, Jamie states 6 servings but I would say at least 12 reasonable servings.

My Mum’s Spottier Dick - from Jamie Oliver Chef 2

Ingredients

125g suet (or butter) grated

140g dried chopped apricots

225g raisins or sultanas

1 orange (zested)

140g plain flour

140g sugar

140g fresh breadcrumbs

2tbsp fresh grated ginger ( I used 1 tbsp syrup from a jar of preserved ginger)

Pinch grated nutmeg

Pinch salt

1 egg beaten

500ml milk

Method

Grease (really well) a 1 litre pudding basin.

Mix all the ingredients together, except the egg and milk. Add the beaten egg with milk and mix well. (I used my kitchen whizz to mix the butter with the flour then put the mixture into a large bowl, added the fruit etc and then the egg/milk mixture).

Put the mixture in the basin, cover well with tinfoil or a cloth (used about 4 layers of tinfoil – adding a pleat at the top to allow for the pudding to rise). Tie a piece of string around the bowl for easy placement and removal.  Put the basin in a large pan of boiling water – the water should be about half way up the sides of the basin. Put on a tight fitting lid and simmer for 3 hours, making sure to top up with boiling water every now and then.

Serves 6

Next day, left overs ready to be warmed through, yum!