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Photo by TARMO HANNULA
Sticky Toffee Pudding
By SARAH RINGLER
As we are almost having a real winter, I’d like to present an English steamed pudding. This is not the upscale manor house version, but one that is homey, economical, and rich in flavor. It’s adapted from Lucy Doncaster’s “500 Budget Recipes” from a book in the Watsonville Library that I have highlighted before. I really distrusted this cookbook at first and judged the book by its title. The title was so plain that I severely doubted that the recipes would be any good. Not only did I have to eat my words, or thoughts in this case, but I have been lucky enough to eat some remarkable new dishes, some that I have made more than once.
Even though this recipe calls for steaming in the oven, the pudding could be steamed on a stovetop and probably was in times before few people had ovens. To do this, you are going to need an ovenproof bowl. Pyrex bowls that can hold about 4 cups of mixture would work. Metal molds or ceramic bowls can also be used. The mold or bowl will be filled with the pudding, covered and put into a large baking pan filled with simmering water up to the halfway point of the bowl. I’m going over this now because I’d like to encourage you to try this recipe, but warn you that you might have to rig something up like I did. The pudding is sweet, moist and cakelike.
The original recipe calls for muscovado sugar. It is a dark cane sugar that has a lot of molasses in it. The term was first used in 17th century England to refer to poorly refined sugar of a low quality. The Spanish called this less refined sugar, “azúcar mascabado” which the English misheard as muscavado. I just used a dark brown sugar as it didn’t seem appropriate with a “budget recipe” to go searching around in some high end cooking store for the real version. Along the same vein, I used canned milk instead of cream. It still tasted wonderful.
Sticky Toffee Pudding
1 cup toasted walnuts roughly chopped
¾ cup butter
1 cup light brown or muscovado sugar
4 tablespoons heavy double cream or canned milk
2 tablespoons lemon juice
2 eggs, beaten
1 cup all purpose flour
1 ¼ teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
Toast walnuts at 300 degrees for about 15 minutes.
Butter a heat proof bowl that holds at least 3¾ cups. Put the toasted walnuts at the bottom of the bowl.
Heat ¼ cup of the butter with ¼ cup of the brown sugar, cream, 1 tablespoon of the lemon juice in a small pan. Stir until smooth and the sugar has dissolved. Pour half of it over the walnuts and up the side of the bowl.
Beat the remaining butter and sugar until fluffy. Then beat in the eggs. Fold in the flour, remaining nuts and lemon juice. Spoon into the baking bowl.
Cover the top of the bowl with baking parchment with a pleat down the middle if necessary. Tie the parchment to the sides securely. Fill a large pan with water half way up the sides of the heatproof bowl. Remove the bowl from the water until the water is hot.
When the water is simmering, add the bowl carefully and steam the pudding for about 75 minutes. It is done when a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
Warm up the sauce again. Invert the pudding on a plate and serve.
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