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.
The two basic types of British puddings are a suet crust pudding with a filling or a suet sponge pudding. Examples of a pudding with a crust are a steak and kidney pudding or a Sussex pond pudding and examples of the sponge pudding are spotted dick, Christmas pudding and college pudding.
Well, I wasn’t very daring this month and you won’t find any suet in this post. In case you’re wondering, suet is the hard but flaky fat found on the inside of a cow or sheep around the kidneys and that area of the body. Did I hear you say Ewwwwwww. No, that was probably me. I told you, I wasn’t very daring this month.
Luckily we were allowed to use substitutes for the suet in our British puddings and even better, we were allowed to make a savory or a sweet version. If you’ve visited my blog much you’ll know that, of course, I picked the sweet version.
I picked a rich, fudgey, lick-your-plate-clean, Very Chocolate Pudding from the very British Pudding Club website made with butter. They recommended serving it with a sauce and I thought since there was so much chocolate going on that a Creme Anglaise sauce would be perfect and it was.
I added the strawberry just for the picture, but after I had a bite of strawberry and a bite of Chocolate Pudding with Creme Anglaise sauce all at the same time, I decided it was a fabulous combination and diced up some strawberries to serve with the pudding.
This pudding reminded me of molten lava cakes that are so popular now, only without a liquid chocolate center. It had a very soft almost gooey texture in the middle – perhaps I should have steamed it longer, but it set up more after it cooled and everyone loved it. Did I mention I licked my plate clean.
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened
- 1/2 cup granulated sugar
- 1 cup all purpose flour
- 1/4 cup cocoa
- 1 1/4 teaspoons baking powder
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 2 eggs, beaten
- 1/3 cup chocolate chips
Directions
- Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Sift the flour and cocoa together and add to the creamed mixture with the egg, a little at a time, beating well between each addition. Finally, stir in half the chocolate chips. Place the remaining chocolate chips in a greased 1.5 quart pudding bowl before adding the mixture. Steam for 1 ½ hours. Turn out and serve with, inevitably, Chocolate Sauce. Custard or Extra Thick are also wonderful with this pudding.
- I followed the recipe for Creme Anglaise on Cafe Lynnylu, except I substituted vanilla bean paste.
- Visit the Daring Kitchen Recipe Achieve for the recipes and (tips on steaming) and the Daring Bakers Blogroll to see the wide variety of British Puddings other Daring Bakers created. Thanks Esther for helping take me out of my comfort zone and learning to bake with steam.
- FYI: Steamed puddings are generally steamed in a pudding bowl which is covered with waxed paper and foil and tied with kitchen string. The pudding is lowered into simmering water which should come halfway up the sides of the bowl. The bowl sits on a trivet, scrunched foil or even a folded tea towel in the pot so it does not come into contact with the direct heat. The pot is covered with the lid and the pudding allowed to steam as required. Do not let the pot boil dry. You can also steam in a crockpot or a steamer.
Notes
http://www.barbarabakes.com/2010/04/daring-bakers-very-chocolate-pudding/
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I love to bake, especially cookies, cakes, and pies. I’ll post my adventures in the kitchen, my favorite new recipes, as well as our family favorites.
The pictures speak for your pudding… yummy and sinful…. Love the topping of creme anglaise, must be so compatible
Sawadee from Bangkok,
Kris
woow..such a tempting and gorgeous looking pudding…
I'm so impressed that yours came out looking so good. I had a heap of crumbles – nothing like yours. And I suspect your pudding was considerably better than my chocolate version. Maybe I'll follow your recipe and try again – with the slow cooker.
A truly, truly delectable looking pudding! The sauce & the strawberries make it even more irresistible!
wow you did an amazing job, I've always been afraid to join daring bakers..great pudding, divine
sweetlife
Barbara – I love chocolate steamed pudding! I did a treacle one which is also very popular in England. I had no problem with the suet as they sell it in the supermarkets here so you don't really have to think too much about it. However, I did use the vegetarian one for this challenge. It looks gorgeous btw.
Wow am I ever going to try this one. I still have to do my DB pudding can you believe it? This is just simply fabulous!
Your chocolate version looks heavenly with the strawberries and the creme anglaise.
Mimi
Thank you so much for this recipe.It's remembering me when I was young and I was in England for improving my English.I'm Italian and I'm from Tuscany.I have to realize this pudding.Thank you again
Clever you, Barbara, to put a chocolate twist on a British pudding!
I'm with you on the suet. Ewwwww.
This looks divine and frankly, creme anglaise on anything just makes the dessert for me. I can sit and eat a bowl of it on nothing at all!
This sounds delicious, Barbara! Well done on making a version that would appeal to you and your family more than the suet (though suet really does add a good flavor).
Oh looks so good! I would have licked my plate clean too!
Looks great. I was very tempted by that recipe as well- I'm sorry I didn't try it myself!
I really want to try making this pudding sometime. I'd leave out the suet as well. Icky!
Chocolate is the perfect flavor and I'd be licking my plate clean for sure as well!
It does indeed look very chocolatey. I have to try an all chocolate version next.
The way I see the photo of the cake baked it doesn't look like you've underbaked for today's modern taste…as long as it holds its own shape to turn out from the mold the best solution is what you've ended with…slightly gooey centre..
In the "Olden Days" as my daughters' like to refer to everything including steamed puddings were baked/steamed/cooked to an inch of its life!!
We don't go for overcooked fish, falling apart soggy vegetables, dry meat or overbaked dry cakes/puddings.
The only exception I can think of right now is a pastry shell should never be underbaked…raw pastry is not nice…
Your pudding looks perfectly gooey and lush…
This looks so yummy!! I plan to make chocolate pudding next time round.
Oooh wow this chocolate pudding looks like absolute heaven. I wish id participated in this months challenge now
.
I love the chocolate pudding idea, especially with the creme anglaise sauce! It looks so delicious!!
I'm really starting to wish I'd done this challenge now, I had steak and kidney pudding stuck in my head and didn't think about steamed sponges. Yours is the first chocolate one I've come across, it looks marvellous, especially with custard.
Hi, I made suet Sussex Pond, and it was not too good. Next time I'd use butter just like you did. I'm glad you like it
Cheers
Yummita
hi barbara I am in awe in front of your cake!! Pierre de Paris
Yum! I was tossing up between chocolate or butterscotch puddings. Your one looks great Barbara!
Your chocolate My Fair lady pudding sure is gorgeous!!!
Am also here to tell u something interesting!!!
SUper giveaway at this link…psst psst, am sure u love LE CRUESET ,dont ya?
Well its jus one of the goodies u can chose:-))))
http://brightmorningstarsfoodie.blogspot.com/2010/04/my-1st-sunshine-giveaway-thanxxx-aton.html
WOW! This looks fabulous! Yummm!!!
xxMK
http://delightfulbitefuls.blogspot.com/
I am so regretting not doing this DB challenge. Your pudding looks fabulous and if you say it was like a lava cake then I bet it was delicious too. I would have licked my plate too!
I love that chocolate pudding, perfect with the strawberries! Yummy