Day 65: sunday puds

Growing up, the pudding to a Sunday-dinner was always just as exciting as the roast itself. Not only looking forward to what meat was on the menu (and whether or not the meal included cauliflower cheese: the only way I could have then justified eating cauliflower) but also eagerly peaking into the kitchen in anticipation of what delight was scheduled for dessert.

The pudding would always go into the oven as we sat down for the main meal, on the assumption that eating the main would take half an hour to eat plus a half-hour break before dessert. This assumption is of course also based on a dessert that takes around 45-60 minutes to cook, such as a bread and butter pudding. A steamed treacle pudding, which was often on the menu as well, would give a longer break after dinner as it took closer to 90 minutes to fully steam (depending on size, of course). The smells of the roasting meat, the meat-juice-enriched gravy and the potatoes roasting in dripping were slowly replaced by those of the dessert that pervaded through the kitchen and into the dining room as we joyously enjoyed our meal, with a promise of a wonderful dessert to end the event.

As much as the pudding itself was part of the Sunday-dinner menu, however, so was the choice of dairy that was served alongside it. Custard, cream or ice cream? Firstly, how do you chose? Secondly, if it’s custard - and I say this with tremendous emphasis - then it must be cold, for me. The only time I will consider warm custard is when poured over vanilla ice cream, which was actually my choice of dessert on Christmas Day. As a child, I was never a big fan of Christmas pudding or mince pies, so I would happily fill a bowl with any dairy item I could find, which often included, but was not limited to: ice cream, cream, brandy cream, brandy butter and hot custard. Before you judge, do try hot custard on ice cream: the ice cream cools the custard, but not before the custard melts the ice cream to a wonderful consistency; you end up with a bowl of thick, frothy custard and it’s just lush.

My Mum tells me of the times when she and her sister would go to their Grandmother’s for dinner and that they were each treated to a dessert of their choosing, and my Nan still asks me to this very day what I want for pudding when we visit. Should anyone wish to know, my answer is, invariably - crème brûlée. She makes them narrow and deep, as opposed to wide and flat like the versions often served in restaurants. They are perfectly baked, too: a thick, velvet-smooth, vanilla-studded custard and not a gelatinous wobble. Of course, I like a wobbly custard, but I feel this is better suited for a creme caramel or a baked egg custard pudding; another classic I need to try my own hand at.

Anyway, I digress.

In adulthood, more specifically in this house, pudding for mealtime tends to get forgotten (much to my husband’s dismay). It’s as if it’s taken the back seat: not prioritized anymore. I used to make a cake every week, less a dessert and more a picking for your fancy when you’re craving something sweet, but it’s been a long time since I’ve embraced that kind of baking schedule. Sunday afternoons, however, seem the perfect time for cooking up a batch of something sweet to provide dessert, not just for dinner but also sugary sustenance for the days ahead: a ridiculous notion not to embrace, in my humble opinion. Mondays are bad enough, why go into them without a little something sweet in the fridge to curb the morning blues. I also love the feeling of reward and accomplishment when you have a part of the weekend to take into the week with you. I’m referring to constructive leftovers here, not a two-day hangover. I like to think of it as a key component of your culinary infantry for tackling the early-week blues and simplifying meals and snack times.

Thanks to this cookalong, and indeed Nigella and her wonderful array of desserts, this is a practice I now gladly embrace. This week’s pick took the form of her Marmalade Pudding Cake.

Nigella’s Marmalade Pudding Cake

I have actually made this before, but it was less of a marmalade pudding-cake and more of a ginger jam pudding-cake, using up a jar of ginger jam we had received in a hamper about 4 years prior. This was before I discovered my love for ginger jam on toast following the making of Nigella’s Grandmother’s Ginger Jam Bread and Butter Pudding. Although this post isn’t about my twist on the pudding-cake, I do highly recommend it if ginger is your jam.

I don’t have a food processor - I am (very) slowly saving up for one - so I used the creaming method. Instructions for which are provided in the recipe. I played it safe with the marmalade: I am not too keen on it, neither have I ventured far into the bitter palate, so I went for a finely shredded, light-amber-hued one. This obviously meant my version lacked the auburn glow, as pictured in Nigella Kitchen.

I did also overbake it: the cake teste didn’t come out clean after 40 minutes and it ended up with another 15 minutes in the oven, instead of five: a common mishap in this house when I get distracted and forget to set the timer.

Flavour musings

My attempt may lack that auburn, tawn glow but it was beautifully fragranced and addictively bitter. Now, to you – or indeed anyone well experience in bitterness (of the culinary variety) – this probably falls within the sweet category, but for me - who frequently avoids bitter things (both in life and in the kitchen) - this was indeed bittersweet and highly worthy of a place on the Sunday-dinner menu.

It seems to be the week for exploring bitterness (again of the culinary variety: I have no place for it in life, or indeed people who might be that way inclined) as I will also be making Nigella’s Chicken Traybake with Bitter Orange and Fennel. You can read more about that one soon.