A Great British Pudding.

[Eamonn 61]

Spotted Dick

2 oz plain flour

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 teaspoon mixed spice

pinch of salt

2 oz shredded suet

1 oz white or brown sugar

4 oz currants

2 oz fresh breadcrumbs

1 egg, beaten

4-5 tbsp milk

 

 

Butter a 1.5 pint pudding basin. Sift the flour, baking powder, spice and salt into a mixing bowl and mix in the suet, sugar, fruit and bread- crumbs. Stir in the egg and sufficient milk to produce a soft consistency that drops off the spoon in 5 seconds.

Turn the mixture into the pudding basin, which should be two-thirds full. Cover with greased foil or a snap-on lid (the plastic container from a 2 lb Christmas pudding is worth saving for this purpose.) Steam for 2 to 2.5 hours. When cooked, remove the cover and allow the pudding to shrink slightly, then cover the basin with a hot serving plate, hold it firmly and invert. Lift off the basin to leave the pudding on the plate.

 

Serve hot with custard.

Enjoy.

Eamonn.

 

 

[Kahuna 172]

Sounds very much like a receipe from the cookbook of the Patrick O'Brien (of Master and Commander fame). One of Captain Jack Aubrey's favorite dishes. Thanks for posting that. I'll have to crank up my limited cooking skills and see if I can do one of those.

[Eamonn 61]

Hi Kahuna,

A lot of British desserts were very heavy and did stick to your ribs.

There are many good recipes for custard, that involve cooking egg yolks, vanilla, sugar, milk and flour. There is also Custard Powder, which I think is mainly a mix of yellow food coloring and corn starch or cornflour. When I visit family in Canada, I try to bring home a few boxes of Birds Custard powder. It is so much easier than messing with egg yolks, which if you over cook them separate and turn into a scrambled egg type mixture.

As a little fellow I was a sickly kid, our family Doctor a very large man from India, who was our family for eons told my Mother that milk sweetened with sugar and thickened with cornflour would help build me up. That along with Guinness mixed 50/50 with milk.

Guinness is great in place of water or stock in a stew and adding a good dash of your favorite tipple to the cornflour mix adds a lot.

I imagine with your Navy background Rum would be good, I like Brandy and Her Who Must Be Obeyed likes Grand Marnier or Cointreau.

Eamonn.

 

[Sandyt888 10]

My favorite of steamed puddings is Eve's Pudding. As I remember it, its similar to this, but with apples mixed in. We had apple trees in our yard and there was just so many apple tarts, apple crumbles, and chutneys one could stand.

 

 

[Kahuna 172]

Eamonn: Splutter, splutter, gack, gack, caff caff - NAVY?? Wheez, choke, splutter, splutter - NEVER!! :-)

 

Thirty years Air Force, active duty and reserve.

 

Of course, I do work with Sea Scouts and volunteer aboard a Navy warship memorial (so I guess I can overlook it since you may have been misled), but serve in the Navy? Never. I also am a big fan of the late Patrick O'Brien, whose books are always discussing British food of the early 19th Century. There's a cookbook that was put out by fans to explain how to cook some of their concoctions: syllabub, boiled baby, spotted dick, lobscous, etc. I'll let you know how I make out with that one.

[Eamonn 61]

Kahuna

Break out the cat and nine tails!!

I'm sorry about sticking you in with the bath tub brigade.

Many years back when I was active in UK Scouting we organized an Air Camp at RAF Mildenhall,of course there were a lot of Americans there.

At one time we had a lot of Scouts who were very interested in flying and planes so we used to visit the Biggin Hill Air Show. Sad to say we were there in 1980 when there was a crash.

We had one Lad who was crazy about planes, he is now one of the top Air Traffic controllers in the UK. I think he teaches other ATC's I know that he is in Manchester and every-time he writes to me he tells me that it's raining.

Eamonn.