Staffordshire Fig Pudding

The April 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Esther of The Lilac Kitchen. She challenged everyone to make a traditional British pudding using, if possible, a very traditional British ingredient: suet.

Staffordshire Fig Pudding Taken from TheFoody.Com
450g (1lb) Figs
340g (12oz) Flour
170g (6oz) Suet, finely chopped
Milk

Mix the suet with the flour and make into a smooth paste with milk.
Roll it out to the thickness of about 1.3cm (½ inch).
Cut the figs in small pieces and scatter over the paste.
Roll it up, make the ends secure.
Tie the pudding in a cloth.
Boil it for 1½ to 2 hours.

I was going to steam mine in my crockpot, since I don't have a steamer, or a pudding cloth, or anything at all that would have made this challenge even slightly easier. I made up my pastry, topped it with fresh figs (from my mother's garden!)and then gave it a little sprinkle of brown sugar, just for luck (and because I wasn't sure the kids liked figs!)

Then I folded the pastry edges over the top and prepared for steaming.

I had located the old steamer basket we used to used for vegies, to go under my bowl and keep it from the bottom of the slow cooker, I had cleaned the slow cooker, invited a British friend over for dinner to help eat it all (in case the kids weren't too enthused), I had 6 hours left until dinner time, I was all set. Except when I went to get the alfoil out of the drawer, I found Master One had played with it all. So, no pudding for dinner that night, since I would run out of time for the steaming, by the time I'd picked up Miss Four from kinder, and made it down to the shops and back.

No problem, I thought. I'll whack it into the fridge, and go and get some foil early tomorrow. The bank account was a little dry, only $10 left for another week, but as I had enough food for dinners and the like, that was just for milk, and we could squeeze in a pack of alfoil. So the next morning, get to the shops, and I thought, I better check my balance at the atm before I get to the register, so I know how much I can spend. Only, instead of $10, I had negative $1. Stupid unexpected transactions. So it was a week before I had money again. I have alfoil now, but no more suet or figs, and the pudding has been sitting neglected in the fridge far too long to contemplate cooking. To tell you the truth, after all that, I'm not sure I'm game to try again, my slow cooker might catch fire, or my kitchen roof cave in. It just seems it's not meant to be. Pity, because I was looking forwards to seeing flaky golden pastry emerge from a steaming process...

Here's hoping I have better luck (and less dramas!) next month with the Daring Bakers.

Warm Lime Pudding

Taste & Create time again, and this month I was partnered with Carol from No Reason Needed. Deep in her archives (Dec '07) I found a delicious sounding pudding, I thought perhaps might be what we call Self Saucing Pudding here in Australia (It wasn't). I don't usually have lemons around, but I've been on a lime kick lately, so I do have those. The recipe here for Warm Lemon Pudding is exactly what I used, only with (3) limes instead of lemons. It took longer to cook than I expected, perhaps because I used the bottom shelf of my oven, perhaps because it was supposed to be runnier than I thought. I eventually took it out of the oven when the top had set. Even after that, the middle was still goopy. I guess that's how it's meant to be.

Goopy, but delicious looking

I garnished it with a sifting of icing sugar, and a hefty sprinkle of hot chocolate mix, then each serve got a scoop of ice cream, and another sprinkle.

No extra sprinkle for Master One, his ice cream was too photogenic!

The chocolate and lime flavours made my tongue do a happy dance. It served all 5 of us, just. With ice cream. After a big dinner. It was filling, but I could have eaten more. It was kind of like inverse Chinese food - you can eat heaps while you are eating but feel so full 5 minutes later.

Dutch Pea Soup with Stuffed Crust Rolls.

Soup and Cheesy Rolls

One of the first soup recipes I wanted to try when I started the soups on Fridays for Winter was my mother's pea and ham soup. Not that we referred to the ham, to us it was just 'pea soup' and very tasty. I've gone as far as to put this on my menu plan several times, but for one reason or another, I hadn't gotten around to making it until today. Here is the recipe as my mother emailed it to me.

Dutch Pea Soup
1 Smoked Hock
500g green split peas
2 large leeks or 500g onions = 6 onions
3-4 celery sticks
4 beef cubes
3-4 litres of water
2 potatoes opt.

Place hock in water and bring to the boil and let simmer for about 2 hours or until the meat falls of the bone. (I usually do it in the evening.) When the meat is cooked take it out of the water turn the heat off and place your split peas in the water and leave over night.
The next day bring the peas to the boil and then place all the finely cut vegetables in it with the beef cubes too. Let it simmer for about 1-1 1/2 hours until the vegetables and the peas are well cooked. I personally then bamix it all very fine. Only then do I put the finely cut pieces of meat in it that I cut off the bone etc.

Mum was here today and she looked after the kids while I made this - it was nice to cook for a change without having to answer endless questions about ingredients, methods and the nature of the universe from Master Four.

I'm too cute for soup - can I have dessert now?


Hey, I can be cute too, can I skip as well?

I forgot the beef cubes, but didn't really notice the difference in taste. The potatoes really aren't optional, this soup needs to be thick, like a winter scarf.

Piping hot rolls - if you look closely you can see where the cheese leaked

With the soup, I made the usual bread rolls, but stuffed the inside with some grated cheese just for something different. The kids both ate all of their two rolls each, which was a first, so I guess that's a keeper.

Chocolate Mess and ice cream

I promised you all a special slow cooker dessert tonight, and here it is. I found this in a slow cooker recipe thread on a parenting forum I used to frequent. It sounded so interesting I had to try it.

Chocolate Mess - Posted by Sarah_H
1 pkg chocolate cake mix
1 220g container sour cream
1 pkg instant chocolate pudding mix
1 cup chocolate chips
3/4 cup cooking oil
4 eggs
1 cup water

Spray crock pot with non-stick cooking spray.
Mix cake mix, sour cream, pudding mix, chocolate chips, oil, eggs and water in bowl by hand. Pour into crock pot.
Cover and cook on low 6-8 hours (or high 3-4 hours).
Serve hot or warm with ice cream or whipped cream.

Freshly cooked mess