almost instant really easy steamed syrup pudding

Winter, river in flood, Wales lost at rugby...it seemed like a good day to have a sweet pudding.  I found a steamed syrup pudding recipe made in a microwave, and decided to try it.  I used to make steamed puddings in a pressure cooker when I was a student three decades ago, but now I don't even own a pudding basin, muslin, pressure cooker- though I probably could lay my hands on some string and I reckon I could still tie one of those double loop over the top to make a handle arrangements if I tried.

This recipe makes two good helpings or three if you are more restrained.

50g butter - I used soft spread to make creaming quicker
50g sugar
50g self raising flour (made from 40% urid, 40% tapioca, 20% cornmeal, and a rounded tsp of baking powder per 100g flour)
1 egg
1/4 tsp vanilla

3 tbsp Golden Syrup, jam, marmalade...whatever you want on the pudding.

Cream butter and sugar together.  Stir in egg and vanilla.  Mix in flour.
Put syrup in base of a microwave-safe bowl. Place batter on top of the syrup.  Cover bowl with cling film. It will balloon while cooking but don't worry, it turned out fine.

Cook on medium heat in a microwave for five minutes.

When you want to take off the clingfilm I recommend you stab it swiftly with a horizontal knife so that as it collapses the film lands on the knife rather than the pudding.

Serve with custard or eat plain.  I found it a bit sweet so sprinkled lemon juice on top, but Rod ate his with custard and gusto.  I don't think people would know it had been rustled up in a microwave and took less than ten minutes from having the idea to finding the recipe, making the batter, cooking and serving.

Marks and Spencer Truly Chocolate Belgian chocolate trufle torte- gluten free and delicious

Wow!  These little flourless puddings are amazing.  Heated for 40 seconds in the microwave you get a smooth intense chocolate pudding.  One between two people looks stingy but is enough.

Food photography is difficult at the best of times, but I simply couldn't take a shot of this that looked anything but weird.

These puddings were in the chilled section at Marks and Spencer, and actually have an orange 'gluten free' logo on the front as well as the helpful allergen box at the back.  Excellent as an indulgent treat or a desert for  dinner party.

You can eat them cold too.

Contain cows milk, eggs and soya.  Not suitable for those allergic to nuts due to manufacturing process.

Spiced plum cobbler

This cobbler has a light cake topping and a rich syrupy spiced plum base.

Ingredients
600g plums, chopped
4tbsp sugar
1tsp cinnamon
1/8 tsp nutmeg
rind and juice of small orange

topping
100g self raising flour (40%urid, 40% tapioca, 20% cornmeal and 1tsp baking powder to 100g flour)
50g cold butter
50g sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
1 egg
rice or other milk to produce soft dropping batter


Cook the plum mixture until the plums are beginning to soften.  Place in either one medium pie dish or two smaller ones (I like to make two so I can freeze one).

Cut the cold butter into small pieces, toss in the flour, then rub together, either with your fingers or a quick whizz in a food processor.  Stir in the sugar and spice, then the egg and milk.

Carefully spoon the cake mixture on top of the fruit.  Cook in a medium oven (175C fan) for 25-30 minutes until the top begins to brown and the cake is cooked all the way through.

This easy pudding can be made with any variety of fruit.

Summer berry cobbler, gf, tapioca free and corn free

I've given up eating foods make with my new tapioca free flour blend as I think the buckwheat causes me gut ache.  However, I have a batch already ground and mixed to use up, so I have been continuing to test it with some of my usual recipes; others will have to eat them.  I'm planning to test my oreo-style cookies for when the grandchildren visit next week.

This fruit cobbler is one of our standard puddings -good with apples in the winter and raspberries in the summer, or any other of fruit you have handy.  This cobbler is made with cherries (still have a few morello cherries in the freezer from our trees last year), and frozen blueberries and raspberries from the store.  The combination of the lousy weather and the sprained ankle means I haven't been to any pick-your-own fruit farms this year.

Oven 175C fan

adjust the proportion of fruit to cake to your own taste

Ingredients
600g fruit
75g sugar (to your own taste and depends on the ripeness and type of fruit used)

175g flour (this is one third each buckwheat, urid and brown rice)
4tsp baking powder
75g sugar
75g butter or other fat suitable for baking
1 egg
150 ml milk - I used rice milk

Mix fruit with sugar and put in a dish with plenty of extra room.  Don't be tempted to squeeze it into a dish that doesn't leave plenty of head room as the fruit will bubble up past the cake in the oven and make a mess.

Mix flour, baking powder and sugar together.  Mix in butter by rubbing into the fat with your finger tips, or whizz in a food mixer.  Stir in egg and milk.  It should make a batter that is easy to dollop onto the fruit. Add more milk if needed, or if you want to increase the protein levels use an exra egg and less milk.

Spoon carefully onto the fruit.  Bake at 175 for about 45 minutes.

If the top is getting brown before the cake is cooked lower the heat.  You can test for doneness by sticking a knife in - you shouldn't see any gooey cake mixture.

If you put the batter onto frozen fruit the pudding will need longer for the cake next to the fruit to cook.

Serve hot or cold.  This pudding freezes well.

Gooseberry almond pudding

A quick pudding that doesn't include any tapioca for those who find it causes problems.

1 egg
20g soft margarine
50g soft brown or other sugar
50g ground almonds
35g urid flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
rice or other milk to make a soft but not sloppy batter
225g gooseberries ( I used mine straight from the freezer)
50g sugar

Mix together the egg, margarine, first 50g sugar, flours and baking powder.  Add liquid to make a softish batter - firm enough that the gooseberries can sit on top.

Put gooseberries on the top of the batter, and sprinkle over the other 50g of sugar.

Bake at 170C for about forty minutes.  If your fruit isn't frozen it may be cooked quicker.  Test with a skewer/fine knife to make sure the cake batter is cooked.

Eat warm or cold.  Freezes well.

seriously lemony easy lemon surprise pudding - gluten free

A while ago I tried to make a lemon pudding where the top is cake and the bottom a sauce.  It wasn't very good, being a rather gluey mix all the way through.  I think I put too much flour in.  Tonight's pudding looked revolting in the making but was delicious to eat.  I made it very tangy with three lemons.  If you like a milder pudding use two lemons.  It took me about five minutes to assemble.

3 lemons, juice, and zest of one lemon
30g fat - I used cholesterol-reducing margarine
125 g sugar
2 eggs, separated
30g my gf flour mix (40%urid, 40%tapioca, 20%cornmeal)
50g rice milk

Mix fat and sugar together
add lemon zest, egg yolk and flour and mix
add rice or other milk
whip egg white until fluffy but not stiff and fold into the mix.

Pour into a greased baking dish.  Place in a larger dish and add water to about half way up the pudding dish.  Bake in a 170C oven for about 35minutes.

This produces a light crisp top with a great puddle of zingy sauce underneath.  I did find that there were some bits that seemed to be half way between the two that I didn't like so much, from around the edge of the dish, so I just didn't eat those bits.

When I made mine I was being lazy and stupid and put the sugar in with the lemon juice and then added the fat - this made a revolting looking mess but I just added the rest of the ingredients and stirred until it was evenly lumpy, then folded in the egg white. This completely unappetising looking mess produced a good pudding, so the recipe is clearly quite robust and would be hard to ruin.

Serve with something creamy if people want to tone down the flavour.

Gluten-free Lemon Surprise Pudding

Years ago I had a pudding which was cake on top and lemony sauce underneath.  I had a go at the recipe, using  a recipe from UKTV as a start.  The BBC recipe needed more lemons than I had, and I thought it would be possible to test the structural qualities of the cake with the first recipe.

Recipe

55g butter, softened
115g sugar
zest and juice of one lemon - I would definitely use at least two next time as very mild flavour
2 large eggs, separated
65g flour (recipe called for 55 but the mix was so sloppy I added 10g)
1 tsp baking powder
285g milk


Cream butter, sugar and zest until light
Add egg yolk, lemon juice, flour and baking powder and mix
add milk
whip egg white until stiff and fold into batter

Place in a buttered dish and bake in a 180C (fan) oven for 40mins.  Place the dish into a roasting pan and half fill with water to produce a gentler cooking environment.

This produced a pleasant, mildly lemon-flavoured, soft fluffy pudding.  It didn't really produce the separate sauce at the bottom that I remember.  I'll have to try it with less flour even though the batter looks as if it would never make a cake of any sort!  Two lemons with the same amount of the other ingredients may well be sufficient to give a zingy flavour.

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