Showing posts with label Puddings. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Puddings. Show all posts
Although I am rationing flour and sugar, I did want to make us something sweet for a weekend treat. Usually at the weekend I like to have a dessert of some kind.
This Diner Style Lemon Pudding fits the bill perfectly.
Not only does it not use any flour, but it also uses a minimum of sugar. Plus I had a lemon which needed using up and I'll be darned if I waste anything now.
I cooked pasta today that was 10 years past its use-by date and it was perfectly fine, believe it or not, and yes that was very brave of me.
It smelt alright and I cooked a bit and it tasted fine, so I used it. And I lived to tell the tale.
This recipe comes from a cookery book I have had since 2007, enitled The American Diner Cookbook, by Elizabeth MdKeon and Linda Everett.
It was originally published in 1962 and is filled to overflowing with an abundance of tasty sounding recipes. There are no photos in the book, bar fascinating photos of old Diners.
Diners hold a special place in the heart of Americans, and the culinary history of America.
Known for their warmth and good simple food they are restaurants which have always beckoned and tempted diners and weary travellers alike with the promise of delicious home cooked food.
The type of food your mama would have cooked. Great food, excellent service and great prices. They are the backbone of the American culinary experience.
They are also very popular here in the UK, Many entrepreneurs have tried to mimic the warmth and style of the American Diner experience, but I have to say in my experience, most have fallen way short of the ideal.
For the most part their food has been over-priced and lacking in something.
You can dress up a restaurant with all the chrome and formica you want, but, without the heart and the warmth of the original, they will always be sadly lacking in that special Je ne sais quois.
Just my opinion and experience.
This is not a pudding in the sense of a British pudding, which tend to be deliciously stodgy desserts, all of which come under the heading of puddings . . . steamed, baked, pies, cakes, etc.
Over here all are classed as pudding, which is merely another name for dessert.
This is very much a pudding in the North American sense . . . in that it is a thick, creamy cold custard type of pudding. Comforting and delicious.
Rich and lush this pudding is filled with lemon flavour! Not too tart, but neither too sweet . . . just lemony enough without being over the top . . .
Creamy and lucious . . . rich with the addition of whipped cream, cream cheese and sour cream, but not a lot of any one thing . . . just a touch . . .
You begin by cooking a lemon custard, which . . . thickened and cooled, has whipped cream folded into it.
This is then poured into a casserole dish and topped with dollops of billowing sweet meringue . . .
Popped into a hot oven briefly until the meringue dollops are golden brown, but still remain soft.
This went down a real treat with the both of us, even my so-called lemon hating husband.
He actually really enjoyed it, so much so that he had two helpings. He just loves custard . . .
Diner Style Lemon Pudding
Yield: 6
A delicious lemon pudding recipe which I adapted from a cookbook entitled American Diner. This is quite simply delicious.
Ingredients:
- 2 large free range eggs, separated
- 64g of caster sugar (1/3 cup finely granulated sugar)
- 3 ounces cream cheese
- 120g sour cream (1 cup)
- 120ml lemon juice (1/2 cup)
- 1 tsp finely grated lemon zest
- 120ml cream (1/2 cup)
- 1/4 tsp cream of tartar
- 2 TBS caster sugar
Instructions:
How to cook Diner Style Lemon Pudding
- You will need a double boiler for this, or a heatproof bowl that will sit comfortably over a saucepan of boiling water.
- Beat the egg yolks togeher with the sugar. Beat in the cream cheese and sour cream until smooth. Add the lemon juice and lemon zest, combining well. Pour into the top of the double boiler, or into the heatproof bowl.
- Cook, stirring constantly over simmering water, until the mixture becomes thick. Remove from the heat and cool completely.
- Preheat the oven to 220*C/425*F/ gas mark 7.
- Whip the cream until stiff. Fold into the cold lemon mixture and then pour the pudding into a shallow casserole dish.
- Beat the egg whites with the cream of tartar until foamy. Continue to beat while drizzling in the sugar. Beat until the egg whites become stiff and form peaks.
- Drop by tablespoons over top of the cold pudding. Pop the casserole into the oven for about 6 minutes until the meringue is golden brown. Cool completely before serving.
This recipe also works very well, cut in half, which is what I did. It was my first time making this pudding. It was so delicious that I can promise you it won't be my last!
Growing up it was a real treat if my mom bought a box of Pudding Cake mix. It was like magic.
Everything was beaten together, spread in a pan and like magic, it baked a cake with a lush thick sauce on the bottom.
It came in a few different flavours. We weren't picky. We'd eat them all. Dessert wasn't something we had very often when I was growing up.
We might have a scoop of ice cream after supper on Friday night, and maybe on Sundays we would have ice cream with some tinned fruit on top, or our favourite . . . strawberry jam spooned over.
Other than that we got cake on our birthday (and ice cream), dessert at Thanksgiving, Christmas and Easter and when we had company for dinner, which wasn't very often.
Occasionally though, mom would let us have the treat of something like a pudding cake on Saturday night.
She had been overweight as a child and so was very careful about what we ate.
Here in the UK another name for dessert is Pudding.
In fact all desserts are called pudding, not to be confused with pudding in North America, which is a thick custard type of dessert that is cooked on top of the stove.
I can remember being asked in a restaurant not too soon after I moved over here, after my husband and I had gotten married, did we want any pudding.
I thought to myself . . . hmm . . . I didn't see any on the menu, so I asked the waitress, did they have butterscotch, which is my favourite.
She looked at me like I was from another planet! My husband explained that pudding was what dessert was called over here and it came in the shape of cakes, pies, bakes and puddings!
Usually slathered with additional lashings of custard sauce or pouring cream, or . . . shudder . . . both!!!
And it didn't stop there. Even ice cream was called pudding.
Because Pudding was a course and not a dish. Does that make sense? I hope so.
Anyways, this is a Pudding that is actually a Pudding! haha
A tasty cake pudding that makes its own sauce and it blows those pudding cakes from my childhood right out of the water.
What you end up with is a lush maple flavoured sauce, topped with a maple and apple cake, filled with chunks of sweet/tart Granny Smith apples.
Make sure you don't leave the apple in too big a chunks or they won't cook all the way through.
You want it chopped coarsely, but medium to small coarse.
The sauce is a mix of maple syrup, brown sugar, butter and boiling water which gets poured on top of the cake in the baking tin.
Don't mix the cake or the syrup together no matter what. They are meant to be cake and liquid on top. Make sure your dish is deep enough or the sauce may boil over.
Like magic when it bakes it forms a fluffy cake on top and a lush sauce underneath.
Perfect spooned into bowls and served warm with some whipped cream or vanilla ice cream, or yes . . . hubbie's favourite, custard. Delicious!
Yield: 6
Caramel Apple Self-Saucing Pudding
A delicious apple filled pudding that sauces itself. Serve warm with whipped cream or ice cream on top!
ingredients:
For the cake:
- 175g self rising flour (1 1/4 cup)
- 50g soft light brown sugar (1/4 cup)
- 100g melted butter (scant half cup, 7 TBS)
- 1 large free range egg, lightly beaten
- 120ml milk (1/2 cup)
- 60ml maple syrup (1/4 cup)
- 1 granny smith apple, peeled and coarsely chopped
For the Topping:
- 240ml maple syrup (1 cup)
- 200g soft light brown sugar (1 cup, packed)
- 240ml boiling water (1 cup)
- 60g butter (1/4 cup)
- (cinnamon sugar garnish optional)
instructions:
How to cook Caramel Apple Self-Saucing Pudding
- Preheat the oven to 180*C/350*F/ gas mark 4. Butter a six cup deep baking dish. Set aside.
- Whisk together the flour and sugar for the cake part. Whisk together the melted butter, egg, milk and maple syrup. Stir the wet mixture into the dry mixture. Whisk together to combine. Stir in the apple and spread into the baking dish.
- Put all of the ingredients for the topping together in a saucepan. Bring just to the boil stirring to melt the sugar. Pour evenly over top of the batter in the baking dish. Do NOT stir to mix together. Bake in the preheated oven for 40 to 45 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the centre of the cake comes out clean. The liquid mixture will have sunk to the bottom creating a sauce.
- Dust with cinnamon sugar and serve warm, spooned into bowls and topped with whipped cream or ice cream if desired.
NOTES:
Make sure you cut the apple into smallish chunks or it may not cook through. You may find grating it works better.
This would make a fabulous dessert alternative for the holidays, rather than pumpkin pie, or Christmas pudding. Simple and very delicious!
This content (written and photography) is the sole property of The English Kitchen. Any reposting or misuse is not permitted. If you are reading this elsewhere, please know that it is stolen content and you may report it to me at mariealicejoan at aol dot com.
Rice pudding is a dessert that we are awfully fond of in this house. In fact I would have to say that it is one of my husband's favourite desserts of all time.
We are also really fond of Sticky Toffee Pudding, and who isn't . . . with its moist date cake and lush toffee sauce! Its just wow.
The shop where we buy most of our groceries puts out a little magazine each month filled with content particular to whatever month it might be. Its free.
I always pick it up and bring it home to have a look through. Sometimes I see recipes I would like to try, sometimes I don't.
In the October issue there was a recipe for Sticky Toffee Rice Pudding. It immediately caught my attention!
I knew that my husband would really enjoy it. He's always asking me to make him rice pudding . . .
Today was the day. There is no sugar in the rice pudding itself. It relies on the sweetness from chopped dates to flavour it, and some vanilla.
You really don't want it to be extremely sweet anyways, as there is a sticky toffee sauce to spoon over top when you serve it along with candied pecans.
None of it is hard to make or time consuming. I made the nuts and sauce while the rice was cooking.
You do have to caramelise sugar for the nuts. This can be a bit tricky but if you follow a few rules you shouldn't have a problem
First use a heavy bottomed pan so that the caramel doesn't cook too fast. Second don't stir it at all when cooking it . . . swirl the pan to move the contents only . . .
Third, remove it from the heat as soon as it starts to turn golden brown. It will continue to cook from the heat of the pan and you don't want it to burn. It can burn in an instant, so beware!
Stir in the nuts and tip them onto a paper lined baking sheet, tearing them apart with two forks as you can. Let cool completely. It will be really hot.
The Toffee Sauce is also very easy to make. You just bung all of the ingredients in a saucepan and cook them, stirring occasionally until they thicken and form a syrupy sauce. Easy peasy.
Altogether, this is really, really delicious. My husband was in rice pudding heaven!
Yield: 6
Sticky Toffee Rice Pudding
A deliciously creamy rice pudding, studded with sticky dates and topped with a lush toffee sauce and candied pecans.
ingredients:
For the rice pudding:
- 125g pudding rice (9 1/2 TBS short grained rice, such as arborio)
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 50g chopped dates (1/3 cup)
- 600ml whole milk (2 1/2 cups)
For the candied pecans:
- 40g caster sugar (1/4 cup)
- 1 TBS water
- 60g chopped pecan nuts (1/2 cup)
For the toffee sauce:
- 50g soft dark brown sugar (1/4 cup packed)
- 50ml whole milk (3 1/2 TBS)
- 20g butter (1 1/2 TBS)
instructions:
How to cook Sticky Toffee Rice Pudding
- To make the rice pudding, measure the rice, milk, dates and vanilla into a saucepan. Bring just to the simmer, then reduce to very low, cover and cook over low heat for about 20 to 25 minutes, stirring occasionally. Set aside to cook for about 10 minutes.
- While the rice is cooking you can do the nuts and the sauce.
- Have ready a baking pan lined with baking paper for the nuts. Measure the sugar and water into a heavy bottomed saucepan. Heat on low until the sugar has melted and then turn up the heat and allow to boil, swirling the mixture (don't stir) until the mixture begins to turn golden brown. Remove from the heat immediately as it will continue to cook and you don't want to burn it. Tip the chopped nuts into this and swirl the pan to coat them well and then pour out onto the lined baking pan. Cool completely and then roughly chop.
- For the toffee sauce, measure all of the ingredients into a saucepan. and simmer gently, whisking occasionally until the mixture turns thick and syrupy.
- To serve, spoon warm rice pudding into bowls. Drizzle with the toffee sauce and sprinkle on the candied nuts. Serve immediately.
Did you make this recipe?
Tag @marierayner5530 on instagram and hashtag it #EnglishKitchen
I love simple desserts like this. They spell home sweet home to me!
This content (written and photography) is the sole property of The English Kitchen. Any reposting or misuse is not permitted. If you are reading this elsewhere, please know that it is stolen content and you may report it to me at mariealicejoan at aol dot com.
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One of my favourite magazines to buy (aside from Country Home) when I was bringing up my children was Good Housekeeping. They always had great recipes in them, plus collectible recipes, which yes I always collected, and crafts, useful articles, etc.
I used to clip out the recipes that I thought looked good and save the craft patterns and any articles I thought would be useful. Every Christmas they would have a Gingerbread House on the cover. So lovely . . . I always aspired to make one like theirs, but never quite managed it.
They have Good Housekeeping Magazine over here in the UK as well, although now my family is grown I never really buy it.
I do find it difficult to resist their seasonal and Christmas special magazines however!
This year I have collected their Spring collection and the Summer one and the other day I was in the grocery store and spied the Autumn one.
You know Autumn is truly in the air when the magazines start presenting you with autumnal pleasures! I could not resist this. a quick glance through it and it was destined to land in my grocery cart!
And it has only taken me two days to bake up this lovely Blackberry Bakewell Pudding recipe that graced its pages.
Our blackberry bushes are filled to overflowing with those lovely berries at the moment. Every day my husband goes out into the yard he brings back another plastic tub full of them.
Having a tasty and novel way to use some of them up was exactly what I was looking for! I do freeze a lot, but we like to enjoy some fresh as well.
One of my husband's favourite puddings (desserts) is the Bakewell Pudding, with its jam layer and rich almond frangipane cake topping.
He even likes the Bakewell Tarts you can buy in the shops with that sweet almond icing on top and the glace cherry decoration.
I knew he would absolutely enjoy this Blackerry Bakewell Pudding recipe!
Fresh blackberries are combined with a quantity of blackberry jam and layered on the bottom of your baking dish.
I had just made Apple & Blackberry Jam the other day (tis the season) so this was the perfect excuse to use some of that as well.
Once you have them in the bottom of the dish you make a simple frangipane cake topping to pour over top.
It is said that the name Frangipane comes from a 16th century Italian Marquis named Muzio Frangipani.
I don't know if this is exactly true, but hey ho, it very well could be, especially if he held a certain fondness for the flavour of almonds in his cakes and bakes!
Frangipane is a mixture which is highly flavoured and composed of ground almonds . . . in a cake, or a cookie, or a pudding.
In this instance ground almonds are combined with a small quantity of plain flour, some eggs, butter and sugar and spread over top of the fruit in the bottom of the dish.
This is also an ideal bake for a coeliac as you can easily substitute the small quantity of flour which is used for the equivalent in a gluten free flour and it won't make much of a difference, as the ground almonds (almond flour) make up the majority of this delicious cake-like topping!
I used my La Creuset heart shaped stoneware baking dish as I don't use it near often enough and I was making this for my sweetie-pie, so why not bake it in a heart shaped dish!
Once baked you top it with a sweet lemon drizzle glaze. You can serve it either warm or cold, with lashings of warm custard of cold pouring cream. I dare say vanilla ice cream would also go down a real treat!
Yield: 6
Blackberry Bakewell Pudding
A delicious autumnal twist on an old favourite! A rich almond frangipane, baked over sweet blackberries, with a flaked almond topping and sweet lemon drizzle glaze.
ingredients:
- 225g of fresh blackberries (2 cups)
- 50g of blackberry jam (1/4 cup)
- 175g butter, softened (3/4 cup)
- 75g caster sugar (6 1/2 TBS)
- 3 large free range eggs, lightly beaten
- 175g ground almonds/almond flour (2 cups)
- 40g plain flour (1/4 cup)
- a handful of flaked almonds
For the glaze:
- 50g icing sugar (generous 1/3 cup)
- the juice of 1/2 lemon
instructions:
How to cook Blackberry Bakewell Pudding
- Preheat the oven to 180*C/350*F/ gas mark 4. Butter a 4 cup shallow baking dish.
- Fold the berries and jam together. Spread in the bottom of the pan. Cream together the butter and sugar until pale and fluffy. Beat in the eggs a bit at a time. Fold in the flour and the ground almonds. Spread evenly over top of the berries in the dish. Sprinkle the flaked almonds over top.
- Bake in the preheated oven for 40 to 45 minutes, until golden brown and a toothpick inserted comes out clean. Let cool for about half an hour, then whisk together the icing sugar and enough lemon juice to make a thin drizzle. Drizzle it over top decoratively and serve.
NOTES:
You can bake this ahead and pop, cooled and well wrapped into the freezer. To use, thaw out in the refrigerator over night. You can either serve it warm or cold. If serving warm, reheat in a 180*C/350*F/ gas mark 4 oven on a middle oven shelf for about 15 to 20 minutes. Drizzle with the glaze and serve. Drizzle with the glaze once it is thawed if you are serving it cold.
I am sorry if I disappointed you by not baking the apple dessert for today, but I had the berries and I needed to use them now. I will save the apple dessert for another time, so you still have that tastiness to look forward to. Oh, and in the original recipe for this, they added the flaked almonds after baking. I added them before, which I thought worked really well as they came out all toasty and nicely nutty!
TASTES TO LOOK FORWARD TO IN THE WEEK AHEAD
(always subject to change as per our circumstances and life getting in the way)
Monday: Country Style Casserole
Tuesday: Cheddar Chowder
Wednesday: BBQ Chicken with Honey Mustard Glaze
Thursday: Pillsburg Potatoes
Friday: Pan Seared Mahi Mahi with a Honey & Lime Coleslaw
Saturday: Irish Oatmeal Muffins
Sunday: Dutch Gingerbread
This content (written and photography) is the sole property of The English Kitchen. Any reposting or misuse is not permitted. If you are reading this elsewhere, please know that it is stolen content and you may report it to me at mariealicejoan at aol dot com.
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