Summer Pudding - Elizabeth Wild
Heritage Dish ... Summer Pudding - Helen Gaffney
Summer Pudding - A Recipe
Summer Pudding - Elizabeth Wild
At the request of those at the recent Portsmouth Gathering, here is the recipe for Summer Pudding. My absolute favourite pudding of all time. Apologies to everyone who already knows how to make it.
Ingredients
Around 7 or 8 medium slices of good white bread*, crusts taken off
1/4 lb black currants
1lb raspberries
8 oz made up of any combination of strawberries, blackberries, red currants or similar fruit
6 oz caster sugar
1 2-pint pudding basin
A saucer that will fit on top of the bowl exactly (it has to push down into the pudding).
*the bread must be nice and firm, not the soft, springy mass-manufactured stuff that has no substance to it.
The black currants give it its distinctive flavour. If you don't have them in America I guess bilberries or blueberries or some such would do the trick. Anything that's a bit tangy.
Method
Strip the stalks off the black currants (and red currants, etc). Put together with any other cookable fruit (eg, red currants, blackberries) with the sugar in a saucepan over medium heat and cook for about 5 minutes until sugar melts, fruit softens very slightly (the black currants start to crack) and the juice runs. Let it cool a little, then add all the other fruit and mix gently.
Line pudding basin with the bread: make sure it all overlaps slightly and press the edges together to seal it well. Fill the lined basin with the fruit, but keep some of the juice back. (Use a slotted spoon if it looks very runny). It has to be moist enough for the juices to soak the bread without it getting too soggy.
Cover the pudding with another slice of bread - the basin should be completely full now. Put the saucer on top of this and then weight it down with something REALLY heavy - around 4 lb at least. This is to squeeze all the juice into the bread. Leave in the fridge overnight.
Turn out onto a plate to serve - tease it out with a knife blade if it sticks. If any of the bread still shows white, spoon the remaining juice over it.
Serve with a large jug of cream (I prefer single) and if any of the juice is left put that in a small jug with it too.
Heritage Dish ... Summer Pudding - Helen Gaffney
There is a widely held belief that summer pudding was once called 'hydropathic pudding' and was served in spas, precursors to today's health farms, where earlier generations went to be cleansed and reduced. Another theory - that it was a summer substitute for the great suet puddings of Victorian England - would fix its origins in the nineteenth century. Many modern food writers adhere to this version of history, hinting that the dessert has only recently been rediscovered.
Alas, it is not true. Summer pudding appears not to have existed before the twentieth century. Although there were antecedents, they used stewed fruit. Dr Johnson's pudding consists of rhubarb between layers of bread in a pudding basin, while Wakefield pudding is any stewed fruit, though most commonly rhubarb and gooseberries, inside a bread-lined bowl. Before the twentieth century there is no evidence of any pudding of any name that packs raw summer berries into a bread casing.
In Mary Novak's book English Puddings Sweet and Savoury first published in 1981, she explains that "raw fruit was considered extremely unhealthy...there are still many people of the older generation who refuse raw fruit and will even stew strawberries and raspberries before eating them". Hardly likely, then, that spas would be offering raw fruit puddings to their clientele. Massey and Sons Comprehensive Pudding Book, published in 1874 lists one thousand recipes, none resembling summer pudding.
The earliest published summer pudding recipe appears to be in a book unassumingly titled Sweets No. 6, published in 1902 and written by S. Beaty-Pownall, departmental editor of Housewife and Cuisine at 'Queen Newspaper'. However, into her plain china mould or basin lined with bread 'as for apple charlotte', the esteemed departmental editor pours hot stewed fruit. Although the fruit in today's summer pudding may be warmed until the juices run, the whole point of the pudding is a filling of unstewed berries in their juicy prime.
Somewhere along the line, we appear to have invented a romantic history for this, one of our favourite puddings. The ruthless truth is exposed by John Ayton in The Diner's Dictionary where he says "The name 'summer pudding' was coined in the 1930s".
Summer Pudding - A Recipe
6 cups assorted berries
3/4 cup water
3/4 cup sugar
1-1/2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
20 1/4-inch-thick firm white bread slices
3/4 cup chilled whipping cream
1/4 cup sour cream
Combine berries, water, sugar and lemon juice in heavy large saucepan. Bring to simmer, stirring occasionally. Strain berry mixture, reserving juices.
Line six 3/4-cup souffle dishes with plastic wrap, overlapping sides. Using 2-1/2-inch round cookie cutter, cut out round from center of 12 bread slices. Trim crusts from 8 bread slices. Cut each slice into 4 equal squares. Dip 1 round into fruit juices. Place in bottom of 1 dish. Dip 5 bread squares, 1 at a time, into juices; place around sides of dish. Spoon 1/2 cup berries into dish. Dip 1 more bread round into juices. Place atop berries. Cover with overlapped plastic wrap. Repeat with bread rounds and squares, juices and berries. Combine remaining berries and juices in bowl; cover and chill. Place puddings on baking sheet. Top with another baking sheet. Place heavy object on sheet. Chill overnight.
Beat whipping cream and sour cream to soft peaks. Unwrap puddings. Turn out onto plates; remove plastic wrap. Serve with cream and berry mixture.
Heritage Dish ... Summer Pudding - Helen Gaffney
Summer Pudding - A Recipe
Summer Pudding - Elizabeth Wild
At the request of those at the recent Portsmouth Gathering, here is the recipe for Summer Pudding. My absolute favourite pudding of all time. Apologies to everyone who already knows how to make it.
Ingredients
Around 7 or 8 medium slices of good white bread*, crusts taken off
1/4 lb black currants
1lb raspberries
8 oz made up of any combination of strawberries, blackberries, red currants or similar fruit
6 oz caster sugar
1 2-pint pudding basin
A saucer that will fit on top of the bowl exactly (it has to push down into the pudding).
*the bread must be nice and firm, not the soft, springy mass-manufactured stuff that has no substance to it.
The black currants give it its distinctive flavour. If you don't have them in America I guess bilberries or blueberries or some such would do the trick. Anything that's a bit tangy.
Method
Strip the stalks off the black currants (and red currants, etc). Put together with any other cookable fruit (eg, red currants, blackberries) with the sugar in a saucepan over medium heat and cook for about 5 minutes until sugar melts, fruit softens very slightly (the black currants start to crack) and the juice runs. Let it cool a little, then add all the other fruit and mix gently.
Line pudding basin with the bread: make sure it all overlaps slightly and press the edges together to seal it well. Fill the lined basin with the fruit, but keep some of the juice back. (Use a slotted spoon if it looks very runny). It has to be moist enough for the juices to soak the bread without it getting too soggy.
Cover the pudding with another slice of bread - the basin should be completely full now. Put the saucer on top of this and then weight it down with something REALLY heavy - around 4 lb at least. This is to squeeze all the juice into the bread. Leave in the fridge overnight.
Turn out onto a plate to serve - tease it out with a knife blade if it sticks. If any of the bread still shows white, spoon the remaining juice over it.
Serve with a large jug of cream (I prefer single) and if any of the juice is left put that in a small jug with it too.
Heritage Dish ... Summer Pudding - Helen Gaffney
There is a widely held belief that summer pudding was once called 'hydropathic pudding' and was served in spas, precursors to today's health farms, where earlier generations went to be cleansed and reduced. Another theory - that it was a summer substitute for the great suet puddings of Victorian England - would fix its origins in the nineteenth century. Many modern food writers adhere to this version of history, hinting that the dessert has only recently been rediscovered.
Alas, it is not true. Summer pudding appears not to have existed before the twentieth century. Although there were antecedents, they used stewed fruit. Dr Johnson's pudding consists of rhubarb between layers of bread in a pudding basin, while Wakefield pudding is any stewed fruit, though most commonly rhubarb and gooseberries, inside a bread-lined bowl. Before the twentieth century there is no evidence of any pudding of any name that packs raw summer berries into a bread casing.
In Mary Novak's book English Puddings Sweet and Savoury first published in 1981, she explains that "raw fruit was considered extremely unhealthy...there are still many people of the older generation who refuse raw fruit and will even stew strawberries and raspberries before eating them". Hardly likely, then, that spas would be offering raw fruit puddings to their clientele. Massey and Sons Comprehensive Pudding Book, published in 1874 lists one thousand recipes, none resembling summer pudding.
The earliest published summer pudding recipe appears to be in a book unassumingly titled Sweets No. 6, published in 1902 and written by S. Beaty-Pownall, departmental editor of Housewife and Cuisine at 'Queen Newspaper'. However, into her plain china mould or basin lined with bread 'as for apple charlotte', the esteemed departmental editor pours hot stewed fruit. Although the fruit in today's summer pudding may be warmed until the juices run, the whole point of the pudding is a filling of unstewed berries in their juicy prime.
Somewhere along the line, we appear to have invented a romantic history for this, one of our favourite puddings. The ruthless truth is exposed by John Ayton in The Diner's Dictionary where he says "The name 'summer pudding' was coined in the 1930s".
Summer Pudding - A Recipe
6 cups assorted berries
3/4 cup water
3/4 cup sugar
1-1/2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
20 1/4-inch-thick firm white bread slices
3/4 cup chilled whipping cream
1/4 cup sour cream
Combine berries, water, sugar and lemon juice in heavy large saucepan. Bring to simmer, stirring occasionally. Strain berry mixture, reserving juices.
Line six 3/4-cup souffle dishes with plastic wrap, overlapping sides. Using 2-1/2-inch round cookie cutter, cut out round from center of 12 bread slices. Trim crusts from 8 bread slices. Cut each slice into 4 equal squares. Dip 1 round into fruit juices. Place in bottom of 1 dish. Dip 5 bread squares, 1 at a time, into juices; place around sides of dish. Spoon 1/2 cup berries into dish. Dip 1 more bread round into juices. Place atop berries. Cover with overlapped plastic wrap. Repeat with bread rounds and squares, juices and berries. Combine remaining berries and juices in bowl; cover and chill. Place puddings on baking sheet. Top with another baking sheet. Place heavy object on sheet. Chill overnight.
Beat whipping cream and sour cream to soft peaks. Unwrap puddings. Turn out onto plates; remove plastic wrap. Serve with cream and berry mixture.