Steam Pudding Secrets

Peter as usual ingredients are the issue. By that I mean, people tend to purchase cheap butter etc.

The steam sponge uses slightly more flour than a standard sponge so:

4 oz good butter
4 oz castor sugar
6 oz Self Raising flour
2 eggs

If you have a mixer, I always use the whisk attachment. Usually the beater is used, but the whisk will give a light result. Whisk the butter and sugar, you will need to make sure the butter is at room temp. Slowly add the mixed egg, this process should take around 6 minutes, i.e. don't rush it.

Turn the blender off then throw in the seived flour, put a tea towel over the mixer and put it to full speed for just a few seconds to get the flour into the mix. (tea towel to prevent mess)

As for the steaming. Get it into your tub. If you want syrup in the bottom or jam. Put the mix on top. Make sure the tub has a good third left of free air so the sponge has room to grow. Cover the top well. Ideally you'll have a steaming tub with a lid.

Place into your steamer in the usual way. It varies how long it takes usually around an hour to and hour and 10 minutes. Check after an hour, if a spike comes out clean your done.

FYI this mix can also be oven baked for Maderia. Once cooked poor on a mixture of Squeezed lemon and Granulated sugar whilst the sponge is hot then allow to cool. Goddamn thats nice!

Hi garyi,

I will try that, thanks, i enjoy cooking myself. it's the one time people can truly spoil themselves.

p.s, can you add fruit such as raisens,currents in the sponge mix?

regards,

Of course.

Once the flour is combined add your fruit. Boil the fruit in a little water and alcahol first, then drain and cool (optional).

A lot of reason for the extra flour in steam recipes is the wet heat can cause less flour to colapse, and also it lends itself well to fruit, again if there were less flour the fruit would sink to the bottom before cooking finished.

In the mean time I have my work cut out on the savoury side today:




Its good to be back in the country. Get back dog!

hi garyi,

Many thanks!
mmm...! (pheasant)

regards,

Gary,

Thanks, I mean, I must have watched my mum do ity dozens of times, but she's not around any more and I couldn't remember.

Peter

No problem.

I will be making pheasant and turkey pie.

It will be made with a hot water crust (pork pie pastry) case. This is made by boiling water and lard and then adding lots of flour to it, it makes a hot pasty dough. You need to work quickly with it as once cold is useless.

The contents will be the four pheasant, some turkey breast. This will be chopped with a knife to mince the meat, not a blender, a knife. Too this will be added French Shallot and French smoked Garlic (Purchased at a French market in Andover last week) A drop of dried chilli grown by a friend and plenty of seasoning. The mix will be too dry as it stands (pheasant and turkey are very lean meats) so it will have a lot of bacon fat added as well.

It goes into the pork pie crust raw. The crust should be 'raised' Usually by taking a lump of pastry banging a bottle on it and raising the pastry around the bottle. remove the bottle and their is your cavity.

It will be baked for about an hour on a hot heat to get the crust going then reduced to 150 for a further hour, throughout it will be basted with egg to build a golden brown crust.

I love christmas. I am sure there is a thread round here somewhere with my pie pair last year lol.

In the meantime the Creole Christmas cake lays in wait for the big day. This little beauty has five kinds of booze in it.

Good old Delia.

That's another 2" in the (ever expanding) waistline - Thanks Garyi!

very nice!

Chaps

Mrs Mick cooks a lot of puddings ( hence our waistlines are but distant memories)and she is adamant that one must use a pressure cooker for best results.

If she says so, don't argue.

Regards

Mick

Pressure is not necessary for good results (pressure does create good results though ) lots of steam is though, the mistake people make is to steep the sponge in the water causing a heavy sponge.

My mother never used a pressure cooker and you could never fault her steamed puds. Christmas was a magic time all the fruit being washed dryed and assembled into cakes and puds. Her suet steamed puds,(syrup being my favourite),were "food of he gods"
Alas too late to find the secrets now.

Howard

I'd like to know your definition of "good butter" Gary. Do you mean salted or unsalted? My idea of decent butter is the President Normandy unsalted stuff.

Peter,

Steam pudding sounds so terribly English from the outre-manche. Are you getting homesick or something?

Will that be custard with it Sir, or crême anglaise?

I've yet to be served a hot desert in France, crème brulée excepted. The idea of hot custard seems to leave the French kind of, er, cold! I did bring a tin of Bird's Custard to a French family once and they served it to me cold, very creamy and rather delicious. I can't remember what it was served with though.

quote:

Originally posted by Steve Toy:
Steam pudding sounds so terribly English from the outre-manche. Are you getting homesick or something?

Will that be custard with it Sir, or crême anglaise?

Steven,

I've been home sick for years now, but once you leave, you can never go back, especially when you've been gone as long as I have. I don't believe the England I'm homesick for really exists, it's a woozy pastel of my imagination probably. I've always been telling Evelyne, that there is no English, truly, English food culture, but by the likes of this thread I thing I could be proved wrong. In any case, nobody does sausages like a good british butcher, ok, wurst from germany and Boudin Blanc in France are good, but a good banger is a joy. As for creme Anglaise, I think I prefer it to Custard. This weekend E substituted creme patissiere for custard and it worked Ok. The steam pud with ginger wasn't bad either, but it was ultimately a bit too compact. It might have been the lack of steam as hinted by Gary.

Gary, nice recipe for the pheasant turkey pie , too. Pheasant are pretty easy to come by here, 8€ each on the market saturday.

quote:

Originally posted by garyi:
This is made by boiling water and lard and then adding lots of flour to it, it makes a hot pasty dough. You need to work quickly with it as once cold is useless.

Any lightweight, unsaturated substitute for the Lard, or could some other pastrycasing be substituted ?

For all expats.
As seen in another place .

nice one, Roy!