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. 

Well this challenge was interesting. I'd made steamed puddings before at Christmas and I have a "go-to" recipe from the "Joy of Cooking" that has always been tried and true.

But I decided to try something different.

Sometimes different is not good.

I admit it. I was feeling a tad lazy and decided to use ingredients I had at hand rather than head out to the grocery store. So I found a recipe that was pretty straightforward. I had suet in my deep freezer from last Christmas. I had raisins. I had flour and eggs. And you can bet I had some brandy. So I was good to go.

The recipe I chose was from "Delia Online" and it was a Steamed Raisin Pudding with Port Wine Sauce. I knew the boys wouldn't go for the port wine sauce, so I decided to make a hard sauce with orange juice instead.

The pudding itself was really easy to pull together. And the steaming was pretty straightforward too. But when I went to turn the pudding out, that's when I became concerned. It was rock hard! It was solid. The knife actually struggled to slice it when I took it out. Hmmmm... is this thing going to be any good?

Doesn't this look appetizing?  Doesn't it?

I whipped up some hard sauce, and re-heated the pudding so that it was steaming hot. I put the sauce on and waited a moment... I admit, it wasn't looking too appetizing. I had my doubts. But I tasted it and it wasn't too bad. Thank god for the sauce.

It's good to try new things. Really it is. But honestly, next time I'm going to stick with my "Joy of Cooking" recipe!