Category: Puddings

Nigella’s sticky toffee pudding

A friend told me about this recipe. She makes it gluten-free. You’ll need a 23 cm square baking dish. This should serve nine people. Serve with additional cream, or ice-cream, or clotted cream…

INGREDIENTS:

For the sponge:

  • 200g dried dates, chopped
  • 200ml freshly boiled water
  • 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
  • 75g unsalted butter
  • 2 tbsp black treacle
  • 50g dark muscovado sugar
  • 2 large eggs
  • 150g plain flour (gluten free if you wish)
  • 2 tsp baking powder

For the sauce:

  • 150g unsalted butter at room temp, soft
  • 300g dark muscovado sugar
  • 1 tbsp black treacle
  • 200ml double cream

METHOD:

  • Heat the oven to 180C
  • Grease the dish
  • Make the sponge first. Put the chopped dates, boiling water and bicarbonate of soda in a bowl, stir and leave to stand for 10 minutes
  • Cream the butter and treacle together, then beat in the sugar. You could use a food mixer for this.
  • Beat in the eggs slowly a bit at a time, then gently mix in the flour and baking powder to make a smooth cake mixture.
  • Gently stir the dates, and then pour the whole lot, water and all, into the batter and gently mix in.
  • Pour into the prepared tin and bake for 35 minutes.
  • MEANWHILE make the sauce. Melt the butter sugar and treacle over a very low heat in a heavy pan.
  • Once the butter is melted, stir gently until everything is melted, then stir in the cream and turn up the heat until it is bubbling hot.
  • As soon as the sponge is out of the oven, stab it with a knitting needle and pour about a quarter of the warm sauce over the pudding until the whole thing is covered with a sticky glaze
  • Leave the pudding to stand. Then take it to the table, warm but no longer dangerously hot. Serve with the sauce in a jug, and with cream or ice-cream.

Plum tarte tatin

I made this one Christmas, after a trial run at home. The trial run went better, my oven heats evenly and I know the sizes of my pans. On the day, in a rented house, it came out unevenly, but it was still delicious. This is a simple recipe that is worth rehearsing to get it right.

INGREDIENTS:

  • 4 large ripe plums, stoned, quartered, and chilled overnight
  • 60g butter
  • 60g caster sugar
  • 1/2 tsp cinnamon
  • 300g puff pastry

METHOD:

  • Put the plums into a dish lined with kitchen paper, cut side down, and chill overnight.
  • Turn the oven to 200C
  • Take a non-stick oven-proof pan, and cover the base with the butter, sliced, and the sugar. Next, put the plums in, cut side down, in a well-packed layer, and then sprinkle with cinnamon. Heat until the butter/sugar caramelises, gently agitating the pan and keeping a close eye. (An 8 inch dish would be fine) This doesn’t take long, five to ten minutes, and the caramel should be a lovely brown colour.
  • Next, roll out the pastry, cut to fit over the plums in the dish. Tuck the edges down over the plums to create an upside-down pastry case.
  • Bake for 15 minutes. If the pastry is not completely golden-brown and crisp, lower the heat to 180C and continue for up to another 10 minutes.

Turn the tarte out onto a serving dish, and serve with thick cream, mascarpone or ice-cream.

 

Poached pears with chocolate

We had poached pears with ice-cream and chocolate sauce tonight, inspiration from Nigel Slater’s Kitchen Diaries.

INGREDIENTS:

  • 4 pears
  • 2 heaped tbsp caster sugar
  • a vanilla pod
  • 1 tbsp lemon juice
  • 200g dark chocolate
  • ice-cream

METHOD:

  • Pour a litre of water into a large saucepan, add the sugar, vanilla and lemon juice and bring to the boil.
  • Meanwhile peel the pears, halve them and remove the cores with a teaspoon.
  • Add the pears to the boiling syrup, and poach for 15 minutes
  • Allow to cool in the syrup
  • To serve, take 200ml of the syrup, and boil this with the chocolate.
  • Serve the pears over the ice-cream with chocolate sauce poured over the top.

Apple and pecan pudding

For the person who left us some apples.

We came home to find a line of cooking apples marching across the kitchen table. Tonight we had apple and pecan pudding.

INGREDIENTS:

  • 1 lb cooking apples, peeled, cored and chopped small
  • 2 oz organic pecan nuts or walnuts, chopped
  • 4 oz organic dates, stoned and chopped
  • 4 oz self-raising flour, organic/wholemeal for preference
  • 4 oz fairtrade soft brown sugar
  • 1 oz melted butter
  • 1 tbsp honey
  • 1 free-range egg, beaten

METHOD:

  • Preheat the oven to 200C
  • Mix the flour with the chopped fruit and nuts, then add all the other ingredients and stir well
  • The mixture should be scraped into a greased 8 inch square baking dish, and baked for half an hour

We had this served with cream. The pudding had a wonderful mixture of flavours and textures.

Rose water rice pudding

This is the strangest recipe for rice pudding I ever saw. But it works. These proportions serve six. I’ve adapted this from an American recipe, so it is by volume rather than weight.

INGREDIENTS:

  • 125ml  short-grain rice (we used arborio)
  • 500ml water
  • a pinch of salt
  • 750ml full fat milk
  • 125ml of whipping cream
  • 1 tsp ground cardamom
  • 50ml cup rose water
  • 50g sugar

METHOD:

  • Put the rice, water and salt in a large pan, bring to the boil and then simmer for 20 minutes until the rice is tender
  • Add the milk and cream, bring to a simmer, cover, reduce the heat to low, and simmer for 55 minutes
  • Add the sugar, rose-water and cardamom, and simmer for a further 10 minutes

Either serve whilst warm, or chill in individual serving bowls to be served with stewed pears or quince.