Steamed Date Pudding with Custard

Serves 8 or more

This is a really easy, light, and very moreish sponge pudding - just perfect for wintry days.

Date Pudding

Ingredients

• Butter for greasing pudding basin and paper covering
• 120g self-raising flour
• Pinch of salt
• ½ tsp mixed spice
• 90g unsalted butter, at room temperature, roughly chopped
• 30g fresh white breadcrumbs
• 3 Tbsp soft brown sugar
• 170g fresh dates, pitted and chopped
• Finely grated zest 1 lemon
• 2 medium (size 6) free-range eggs, at room temperature
• 1 Tbsp golden syrup
• 2 Tbsp milk, at room temperature
• Custard, to serve (recipe follows)

Method

1 Grease a 5-cup (1.25-litre) china pudding basin with butter. Prepare a paper covering as described below.

2 Sift flour, salt and mixed spice into a bowl. Rub in butter with two round-bladed knives or a pastry blender and stir in breadcrumbs, sugar, dates and lemon zest.

3 Whisk eggs with golden syrup and milk, then tip into the dry ingredients. Mix with a wooden spoon until smooth.

4 Turn the mixture into buttered basin, then cover with buttered paper and tie securely with string. Transfer pudding to a large, deep (rather than wide) saucepan with a trivet or put a small clean cloth under the pudding basin to stop it from clattering during cooking. Fill pan with hot water to come about one-third of the way up the basin and cover with a tight-fitting lid. Bring water to the boil, then turn heat to lowest setting and gently steam pudding for 1½ hours. Top up with boiling water from a kettle if water runs low.

5 When ready, remove pudding from pan, snip off string and remove paper. Cover pudding basin with a serving plate, invert and leave for 10 minutes to drop, then remove basin. Serve pudding with hot custard.

Homemade Custard

Serves 6

If you prefer a smooth finish, strain the cooked custard to catch the tiny dots of vanilla seeds (I leave them in as I like the extra flavour). To prevent a skin forming on the top of the cooked custard, sprinkle with a little caster sugar and cover bowl with a lid or plate. Just give the custard a quick stir before serving, and transfer it to a serving jug or bowl.

Ingredients

• 1¼ (about 300 ml) cups whole milk
• ½ vanilla pod
• 3 medium (size 6) egg yolks, at room temperature
• 1 level tsp arrowroot
• 2 Tbsp caster sugar
• Extra caster sugar, for sprinkling (optional)

Method

1 Put milk in a small saucepan. Scrape in the seeds from vanilla pod and add the pod too. Heat gently until warm (not hot), then remove from heat and leave to infuse for 10 minutes.

2 Beat egg yolks, arrowroot and sugar together in a small bowl with a wooden spoon for 2-3 minutes until creamy and smooth. Blend in the milk. Wipe out saucepan, then return the mixture to pan over a low to medium heat. Stir constantly with a wooden spoon until custard thickens and coats the back of the spoon. (At first the mixture will be thin and frothy, and if you tun your finger down the back of the wooden spoon, it will barely leave an impression. Once the custard has thickened, the impression will be easily visible.) On no account let it reach boiling point or it will curdle.

3 Remove vanilla pod (the vanilla pod can be washed, left to dry on a sunny windowsill and reused), then pour custard into a bowl and serve hot, or sprinkle with caster sugar, cool then cover and refrigerate.

Recipe Notes

Covering the pudding with grease-proof paper prevents the steam from making it soggy, and putting a pleat in the paper will give the pudding room to expand. A string handle makes it easy to remove the hot pudding from the pot of steaming water. Here's how to do it: take a large piece of grease-proof paper, fold it in half so you have a double thickness, and make a pleat on the fold. Open pleat and grease paper with butter to prevent it sticking. Refold pleat, then position paper buttered side down on the pudding basin.

Cut a piece of string long enough to loop around the basin twice, and to form a handle. Tie a double thickness of string around the rim to hold the paper in place. Bring string over the top of the basin and loop it through the string around the rim, then back again and tie in a knot to form a handle.  

Choose a saucepan which the basin fits into with enough room for steam to circulate, and one with a tight-fitting lid. To stop the bowl from clattering as the pudding cooks, put a small clean cloth under the pudding basin. Fill the pan with hot water to come about one-third of the way up the pudding basin.

Cover pan with a tight-fitting lid. Bring the water to the boil (you'll see the steam), then turn the heat to the lowest setting and gently steam pudding as directed in the recipe.

Check the water level in the pot about halfway through cooking. If water is low, top it up with boiling water from a kettle, not hot tap water as that will slow the boiling and cooking.

Lift off the lid and immediately flip it over and pour off any water accumulated on the inside of the lid. If you raise the lid above the pudding and let this water drip down onto the pudding, it will make the top of the pudding soggy. Pour water around the sides of the pudding basin, replace the lid and carrying on steaming the pudding until the cooking time is up.

Remove pudding from the pan lifting it up with the string handle, snip off the string and remove the paper. Cover bowl with a warmed serving plate and invert, then leave for 10 minutes to ensure that the pudding has dropped.

Serve puddings hot, cut into slices. Leftover steamed puddings can be reheated in a microwave, or between two plates over a pan of simmering water, or, for a decadent treat, sliced and sugared and lightly and fried in butter.