Sussex Pond Pudding Recipe
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My art studio is down a mud track, off a tiny Wealden country road. As well as it being home to my studio, it is also home to heritage cows, a trickling pond, an Oast house, to name a few. As the pond is near the South Downs Way, I thought the pond was a dew pond; dew ponds are small, round ponds sited in hollows, made by digging a pit and lining it with clay. They're found in a few dry, hilly places, like the South Downs, where there's no water running down the hillsides. This is because the rock underneath the surface, mostly chalk, is full of small openings and water drains away underground. I have now learnt that the soil around my studio is not chalk and does not drain easily, it is clay, thick and muddy, holding the water as firmly as a glass. If the pond near my studio isn't a dew pond, then what is it and what shall I name the painting of the pond?
Recently I discovered that there was an old English recipe called Sussex Pond Pudding and giggled with delight as I felt that this was a much more fitting name for my painting. The Sussex pond pudding, or well pudding, is a traditional English pudding from the southern county of Sussex. It is made of a suet pastry, filled with butter and sugar, and is boiled orSteamedfor several hours. Modern versions of the recipe often include a whole lemon enclosed in the pastry. The dish is first recorded in Hannah Woolley's 1672 book The Queen-Like Closet. Heston Blumenthal has revived the pudding in including it in his enormous recipe book, Historic Heston. Now I am a real fan of Heston and I secretly enjoy the idea of experiencing his restaurant, exploring eggs and bacon ice cream and a chocolate teapot. |
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Ingredients
Method
I hope that the recipe is fun to make and the ouse of the juices soothing.
M U C H L O V E
- 225g self-raising flour, plus extra for dusting
- 110g shredded suet (what is suet)
- 150ml whole milk
- 150g unsalted butter, chilled and diced, plus extra for greasing
- 150g soft light brown sugar
- 1 large ripe, unwaxed, thin-skinned lemon or 2 smaller ones, pricked all over with a skewer
Method
- Sift the flour into a large bowl, then stir through the suet. I have not used suet much and I find the idea a little scary. There are alternatives like; Frozen butter: Use shredded frozen butter as an alternative to suet in pie crusts. It’s important to note that butter has a lower melting point than suet and will melt much faster. Butter can also give your foods a greasy texture, so other suet alternatives may be more optimal. Or Vegetable shortening: Vegetable shortening has a mild flavour like suet and hardens in the refrigerator, making it simple to shred and add to foods that call for shredded suet.
- Quickly mix in the milk, enough so it just comes together as a soft (but not sticky) dough. You might not need all the milk. Remove a quarter of the dough. Roll the larger piece out on a lightly floured surface to form a 30cm circle. Use this to line a 1.5 litre greased pudding basin.
- Spoon 75g butter and 75g sugar into the base, then put the pierced lemon on top. Add the remaining 75g butter and the sugar. Brush the exposed dough with water, then roll out the remaining dough to form a lid. Put over the top of the filling and press the edges together to seal. Trim off excess pastry and discard.
- Grease a square of foil, top with a layer of baking paper and grease this as well. Fold a pleat into the centre and lay, greased-side of the baking paper down, over the basin. Scrunch around the sides and secure with a piece of string. Cut another piece of string just over twice the diameter of the basin. Fold this in half. Attach at opposite ends of the basin to make a handle.
- Put an upturned saucer into the bottom of a large saucepan, balance the basin on top and pour in enough boiling water from the kettle to come halfway up the sides of the basin. Cover the pan with a lid, bring to a simmer and steam for 3Œ_ hours.
- Carefully remove from the pan using the handle, remove the paper, foil and string, loosen the sides, then invert onto your serving plate.
I hope that the recipe is fun to make and the ouse of the juices soothing.
M U C H L O V E
