Tuesday 27 April 2010

Daring Bakers' Challenge - April 2010: Traditional British Pudding

The April 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Esther of The Lilac Kitchen. She challenged everyone to make a traditional British pudding using, if possible, a very traditional British ingredient: suet.

In UK, pudding means dessert. But for this challenge pudding meant a dish/dessert either steamed or boiled. I think Esther chose this challenge to introduce another technique of making cakes as well as introduce an ingredient that is not known by many (suet). Suet is the fat found around the kidney area of a cow or sheep. Suet may be bought fresh from the butchers or for countries like UK and Australia, in groceries. I tried my luck with the butchers, although things just got lost in translation. So for this challenge, I just have to go for the alternative - butter:p

There's basically 2 main types of puddings: crust pudding with filling and sponge pudding. Crust puddings are basically like pies and sponge puddings are like butter cakes. Some classic puddings are Christmas pudding, sticky toffee pudding, Sussex pond pudding and spotted dick.
So for this month's challenge I made a sponge pudding.


The whole process of steaming a cake is all new to me. So I was really excited at the same time anxious with what's going to happen. Traditionally, you would use a pudding bowl or pudding cloth for the pudding, but since I don't have that, I just made use of a normal bowl.


For my first attempt, I made a chocolate pudding with chocolate chips on top.


Puddings are usually served with custard. So I served my chocolate pudding with home-made hazelnut custard. It was definitely a treat! The cake or should I say pudding, was really really moist. The marriage of chocolate and hazelnut was perfect. H and I ended up eating the whole pudding in one sitting! It was indeed a sinful bliss of a dessert.

I was really delighted with the experience of making a pudding that when H asked if we could have friends over for dinner I quickly agreed! I thought, "That's an excuse for me to make another pudding!"


So I made an orange pudding. I just took an orange pound cake recipe, but instead of baking I steamed it. I served it with vanilla custard this time, and it was absolutely gorgeous! The warm kiss of the orange pudding drizzled with a cool creamy custard - miam miam as the French would say. No picture of the pudding with the custard though because I didn't want to keep my guests waiting. ;)

I really had a blast with my first DB challenge; can't wait for next month's!

Components used for this dessert treats:

Bisou bisou,
Charlotte

21 comments:

  1. Congratulations on your first challenge, and bravo on a job well done! That chocolate pudding was so good, wasn't it? I made it after seeing how delicious everyone else's looked. And the orange one looks beautiful with the orange slices on top. Truly fantastic job on the challenge.

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  2. Both your puddings look wonderful! I also made the chocolate one after seeing everyone else's beautiful puddings.

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  3. Well done Charlotte! Your puddings look great and very yummy!

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  4. You inspired me to try a chocolate version myself! It's steaming now, so I have my fingers crossed it will come out half as lovely as yours did. Great job!

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  5. Hello and welcome to the Daring Kitchen. WOW those puddings look lovely well done on your 1st challenge. Both look so beautiful but the orange one really speaks to me. Cheers from Audax in Sydney Autralia.

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  6. Congratulations and what a beautiful job you did, I love the look of the top of the citrus one!

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  7. thanks everyone for your wonderful comments!:)

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  8. Holy moly those puddings look beautiful! You did so well and I love the idea of using a pound cake recipe but steaming instead of baking. Definitely food for thought...

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  9. They both look wonderful and for me one of the best things about hosting this challenge has been seeing what for me is a very traditional dish re-interpretated by people who have never met them before. I love the idea of hazelnut custard and will definetly be trying that myself! I expect to see you as a regular from now on as you certainly have the spirit of a Daring Baker :)

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  10. thanks Katie and Nachiketa!:)

    thanks Esther for this challenge. do expect me to be a regular Daring Baker. :)

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  11. Which recipe did you use for the chocolate pudding? It looks sooo yummy!

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  12. absolutely delicious looking puddings. love it

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  13. I think your chocolate pudding is my favorite so far. It looks so moist! The kind of dessert you can't eat without a big glass of milk - my favorite!

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  14. Welcome to the Daring Bakers! Your puddings look delicious, excellent job on this challenge!

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  15. @Wic, justforlicks and Jeanne - thank you! :)

    @ap269 - I used the recipe Esther gave. Here's the link: http://www.puddingclub.com/wikipudia/very-chocolate-pudding

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  16. Well done on the challenge. I love a good pud, and if you had so much fun making it, even better! Welcome to the DB's with a great first challenge!

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  17. Gonna have to give chocolate a try, and I agree this was a great introduction to steaming pies and cakes.

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  18. Looks delicious, great job!

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  19. Mmm, hazelnut custard... now that's a fantastic idea! Great job on this month's challenge, keep up the great bakes!

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♥ Love to hear what you think of my post!:) Everyone's welcome to comment :) Bisou bisou ♥

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