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.
Steamed British Chocolate Pudding
Ingredients
- ½ cup unsalted butter softened
- ½ cup granulated sugar
- 1 cup all purpose flour
- ¼ cup cocoa
- 1 ¼ teaspoons baking powder
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- 2 eggs beaten
- ⅓ cup chocolate chips
Instructions
- 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.
Barbara
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!
Antonella-Vera55
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
Mimi
Your chocolate version looks heavenly with the strawberries and the creme anglaise.
Mimi
Jamie
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!
Heather
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.
sweetlife
wow you did an amazing job, I've always been afraid to join daring bakers..great pudding, divine
sweetlife
petite nyonya
A truly, truly delectable looking pudding! The sauce & the strawberries make it even more irresistible!
Bunnee
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.
Kamalika
woow..such a tempting and gorgeous looking pudding…
bake in paris
The pictures speak for your pudding… yummy and sinful…. Love the topping of creme anglaise, must be so compatible 🙂
Sawadee from Bangkok,
Kris
Rachel
Choclatey goodness!
Cinnamon-Girl
Eww is right! I always thought suet was just regular lard. This looks decadent and sinful! And totally delicious! Thanks for letting me know about your burger post – I look forward to it.
Sue Sparks
Looks very rich, chocolatey and beautiful-YUM!
tasteofbeirut
Barbara
I would make this dessert every day of the week! It is that perfect in my book!!
Faith
Anything with "very chocolate" in the title has to be amazing! Your description of this beautiful dessert sounds fantastic, Barbara!
kristenly
your pudding looks beautiful. i made the same recipe and now that i have heard about yours i think that i may have cooked mine too long. the creme anglaise looks delicious. well done miss barbara!
elra
Well done on this month challenge, your pudding look wonderful Barbara.
Baking Addict
I love chocolate pudding! Yours looks mouth wateringly delicious.
Cristie
My great-great grandmother used the strange ingredient in her puddings and my grandmother replaced it with lard . . . I'm not sure if that is any better but my dad really likes to have a Christmas pudding once a year for old time sake. Your Chocolate pudding looks and sounds delicious!
Bridgett
This is a beautiful pudding. My British hubby would love it if I made this for him. Well, so would I! Looks heavenly.