if you don't mind
Many years ago I had a favourite Indian restaurant on Corlett Drive in Johannesburg. They served an Indian rice pudding as a speciality on their dessert menu.
A rare treat I have searched high and low for ever since. I assume it was Kheer and infused with saffron. But I have yet to find anything that compares.
Although it is also the dessert menu that has me going back to Darbar in Emsworth. For both their rice pudding and a very sweet doughnut type dessert which I think is Gulab Jamun.
One of my enduring memories of Christmas, is finding the sixpence inside the brandy drenched Christmas pudding.
Patiently waiting for the adults after switching off the lights. All the oohing and aahing, as the flaming pudding was brought to the table. I wasn’t particularly interested in the brandy butter either. It was the shiny new sixpence and a years good luck which I was after.
Whereas now that I am a lot older and a lot wiser, it is what makes the difference between one pudding and another that is important. Like the handmade traditional puddings from a tiny artisan bakery in Devon. Figgy’s puddings that are steamed and matured in the traditional way that allows the flavours to mature and develop.
I wonder if they have ever considered popping a shiny new sixpence into the mix?
Sticky toffee pudding is a warm sponge cake made with dates and black treacle, served with toffee sauce. A contemporary classic English dessert.
Created in the 1970s by Francis Coulson and Robert Lee at the Sharrow Bay Hotel on Ullswater near Pooley Bridge, in the Lake District, from a recipe given to them by Patricia Martin.
A traditional English steamed sponge pudding on a cold winter’s day.
A rare treat that is not as easy to find as it should be. Unless you already know about Quantock Steamers. Situated at the base of the Quantock Hills they specialise in making artisan steamed sponge and meat suet puddings.
The Quantock Hills in Somerset, consist of heathland, oak woodlands, ancient parklands and agricultural land. They were England’s first Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and are the perfect setting for this family-run business.
If you have never had the pleasure of sitting down to a steamed syrup sponge pudding you have something to look forward to.
After being told that it is the quintessentially traditional English dessert, I went in search of the Sussex Pond Pudding.
But no luck.
I scoured Google for any telltale signs of the deliciously rich sauce, which oozes out onto the plate when the pudding is cut open to serve. Nothing. Not one restaurant, I could find, that included it on their dessert menus.
Plenty of recipes though. All extolling the merits of this elusive sticky treat.
Whilst it is not the most attractive of puddings, the rich suet pastry encases a delicious filling of brown sugar and butter, with a whole lemon placed in the centre. As the pudding steams, the lemon softens flavouring the butter and brown sugar which when cut open, pools around the plate giving it, it’s name and the sticky goodness which keeps one coming back for more.
But it is not as traditional as it would first appear.
The addition of the lemon is a relatively new innovation. The original recipe was a suet crust flavoured with currants and sugar that’s rolled around a ball of sweetened butter.
[Edit] Has changed hands and is now more cosmopolitan
Whenever I am in Southampton I make a point of stopping for a pub lunch at the Duke of Wellington.
Which invariably ends with a typically English pudding
Steamed sponge pudding, sticky sweet and swimming in fresh cream
Or the Spotted Dick served with custard.
The Coal Exchange in Emsworth is a regular stop for a homemade Apple Crumble
A nice big plate that is drowning in cream. They also do a good Lemon Meringue and sweet sticky sponge pudding.
Traditional English desserts to round off a leisurely home cooked pub lunch. Simple wholesome food and the hospitality that keeps one coming back over and over.
bbcamerica.com/anglophenia/2014/07/10-desserts-make-brits-america-homesick