Fit for a Queen

We were inspired to make this by the Fortnum and Mason Platinum Pudding competition, in recognition of Queen Elizabeth's 70 year reign and the Jubilee celebrations planned throughout 2022.

Taking the quintessentially English Queen of Puddings, and, in recognition of Her Majesty's German roots, marrying it with the classic flavours of a Black Forest gateau, we have created what we think is a pudding fit for a Queen.

60g butter

50g sugar

100ml double (heavy) cream

400ml full fat milk

50g dark chocolate

125g fresh breadcrumbs

2 eggs, separated

50g sugar

3 tblsp good cherry jam.

Heat the oven to 180ºC

Place the cream, milk and chocolate in a saucepan. As befits a recipe for a queen, I used a pan fit for a palace kitchen 

Heat gently, stirring regularly until the chocolate has melted.

In a mixing bowl, beat the butter and sugar together until well blended and then stir in the breadcrumbs. It is well worth saving up bags of breadcrumbs in the freezer, rather than sacrificing a fresh loaf.

Stir in the chocolate milk and then beat in the egg yolks.

Pour the mixture into a greased 1lb loaf tin.

And yes, I used our "Sunday best" tin, but our standard iron tin would work just as well.

Leave to stand while the oven heats up to 180ºC

Then slip the tin into the oven and cook for 40 minutes, until the custardy filling is just set.

Remove the tin from the oven and set aside to cool.  Turn the oven down to 120ºC

While the custard cools, add 1 tablespoon of the remaining sugar to the egg whites and whisk until they form stiff peaks, then add the remainder of the sugar and contiune beating until they take on the lustre of a princess's pearl necklace.

Once the chocoalte custard base is cool, spread the top carefully with the jam and then top with the meringue.

  

Put the tin back in the oven for around 25 minutes, until a light golden brown.

Serve warm, rather than piping hot!

Netherton Foundry Shropshire 2022 ©

www.netherton-foundry.co.uk

In and out of the kitchen

It has been a week of dipping in and out of the kitchen, with no time for leisurely cooking and experimentation.  To be honest, it's been one of those weeks when I seem to have been constantly busy, with no evidence of what I have achieved.  I have had innumerable forms to fill in for all sorts of bureaucratic reasons; quarter end figures to pull together for the tax man; the last of the washing and shopping for our two student offspring to take back to university at the end of their all too brief Easter holiday and a fair bit of pan assembly and packing as we have been short handed in the workshops.  We operate a policy of never asking someone to do a job we would not be prepared to do ourselves, so when necessary, I will roll up my sleeves, don my Netherton apron and start oiling pans, waxing handles, screwing on lid knobs and wrapping, boxing and labelling orders.

Whilst the order book is still never quite as full as we would like it to be, things are picking up, thanks, in part, to you lot, who help us spread the word.  And we have been talking to two exciting restaurants in London - more of which soon, I hope.
But I still need to be selling, selling, selling; finding potential new stockists and the time to talk to our existing stockists.  We know we need to grow to survive, but we do not want to turn into some sort of anonymous corporation, out of touch with those who make us what we are.

Last night, the cupboards cleared by the locust raid of the students, I was scratting about for something for dinner.
We started with leek and Halloumi fritters, with a dish of potatoes layered in a loaf tin with a mixture of yogurt, chopped wild garlic and melted butter and baked in the oven. And then I noticed we had some slightly wrinkly apples in the fruit bowl, bought in expectation and abandonned when their taste did not match their looks.

So with the brevity of Damien Trench in the Radio 4 classic, "In and Out of the Kitchen"; recipe:

Pour 250ml full fat milk into a saucepan and add 4 cloves.  Bring to the boil, turn off the heat and leave for an hour for the flavour of the cloves to infuse into the milk.

Take 4 apples, peel core and quarter.
Melt 50g butter in a 10" prospector pan over a low heat and then add 120g sugar.
Cook continuously until it turns golden brown.
Add the apple slices, cover and cook for 10 minutes until the apples have softened and taken on some of the caramel colour.
Remove the lid and increase the heat.  Cook until the caramel has turned a rich mahogany and most of the juice has evaporated.

Pre-heat the oven to 170ºC

Remove the cloves from the milk and return the pan to the hob.  Heat gently.
Beat in 50g buckwheat flour, a teaspoon of vanilla extract and 100g sugar.  Add 2 beaten eggs and mix vigorously.
Pour over the apples and pop it into the oven.  Cook for 20 - 25 minutes until the top is firm.

Remove from the oven and leave to stand for 10 minutes.
Invert on to a serving plate and serve with clotted cream.

NB because I have used buckwheat flour, this pudding is gluten free.

Netherton Foundry Shropshire 2018 ©

www.netherton-foundry.co.uk

Taste not waste,

This post is a bit like a recipe, a bringing together of different ingredients and ideas to produce something bigger than the sum of its parts - or at least that's the plan; let's see how it turns out.  It is an amalgam of Januaryism -  miserable weather (it is snowing and raining as I write), still eating the Christmas leftovers, the nagging thought that we should be dieting but its too cold to contemplate restricting our calorie intake, discarded resolutions, scary credit card bills and even scarier bank balances - and a recurrent theme circulating in the media; #tastenotwaste, ie how not to throw food away.

I recently heard the following statistics on Radio 4, and this old Guardian report is roughly concurrent:
In 1957 we spent 33% of our income on food and 9% on housing
It's now 16% on food and 18% on housing.
In other words, we have doubled the proportion of our income spent on keeping a roof over our heads and halved the proportion filling our bellies.

This opens so many cans of worms that you could probably compost our annual food waste in less time than the average wait in A&E for an avocado stone injury.
But this is not an academic treatise, nor am I an economist, so we will leave that discussion to others in more rarified environments than this blog.  But the allusions to food waste and avocados were coincidental; they were prompted by Felicity Cloake's delightfully debunking piece in which she helpfully suggests that avocado flour is "best left to the prehistoric sloth", this in itself being a reference to this article, which, to complete the circle, references "avocado hand".
Having cheerfully dismissed the benefits of avocado flour, Felicity gets down to some much more attractive ways to reduce food waste. She is a clever writer with an ability to cut to the heart of a topic with surgical precision and a devastatingly honed wit.

An upbringing in a less than wealthy Yorkshire household has led me to view food waste as shameless profligacy; each discarded piece of still edible food an act of wantonness akin to "pouring money down the drain"


This is where, for me it all starts to get a bit complicated. Indulge me please, before I share Netherton's own tips and tricks for using up leftover food and a new recipe.

In my opinion there are 2 significant factors at play here and its hard to determine which comes first; a case of the "best before" egg and the "use by" chicken.
So let's start with date labelling.  
Date labelling of food items was introduced in 1950 by Marks and Spencer as a means of stock control and wasn't used as a sell by date until 1973; there has even been speculation that these dates are used by manufacturers to encourage waste and additional expenditure.
Of course, buying habits have changed in the last 40 years to reflect other changes in our daily lives and few people shop on a daily basis or even once a week, so there is something to be said for date labelling.
However, as you have probably worked out, I am with Rose Eveleth on this one;
"...it's probably safe to say that you can ignore whatever date's printed on your food and go for a simple sniff test."

Which brings me to the second factor; a fundamental lack of food education, knowledge and confidence.  As a nation we have lost our connection with food at its most basic.  On Desert Island Discs  recently Angela Hartnett opined that Britain is not a foodie nation; it's not enough to boast some Michelin starred chefs, restaurants listed among the world's best and TV cookery programmes 24/7 when so many households are eating ready meals and takeaways.  I found myself nodding in agreement as she described the domestic cookery of the UK unfavourably with that of Italy. If you have read this blog in the past you will already know what I think of the teaching of food technology in our schools.  Nothing in the curriculum gives kids the confidence to judge for themselves whether or not their yogurt is safe to eat despite what it says on the lid.  Sensationalised reporting of food scares has eroded any confidence their parents may have had and they are growing up to be wary of food, not excited by it.
There is a massive difference between cutting a mouldy crust off a stale loaf of bread and using the remainder for toast or breadcrumbs (never throw stale bread away, you can use it for so many things) and eating undercooked chicken that smells a bit off but isn't green of furry.  The first will harm no-one, the second is salmonella in waiting!
I know that the chances are that if you are reading this, you already know that.  My personal observation is that most people don't, so they throw far too much away.
This doubt/ignorance , together with a restrictive, unimaginative curriculum in schools is one of the key contributing factors to the levels of food waste we are currently witnessing.
Fundamentally, the majority of people simply have no basic understanding of food, cooking and nutrition and it is not their fault.
I don't intend to be sanctimonious and preachy here, I just think we have lost sight of the essentials.
This, to me is such an important topic, way beyond anything I can hope to convey or achieve here.  
I would be very interested to hear your views on this subject.

OK - rant over, here are the Netherton money-saving, food-saving, waste-reducing, flavour-shaking tips:

Brown bananas;
Make banana bread, smoothies and milk shakes or chuck them in your porridge.
Alternatively freeze them for use at a later date in any of the above ideas or remove from the freezer and blitz with a stick mixer for dairy free, sugar free, instant ice cream.
Slice them, dip them in melted chocolate and freeze for bite sized banana choc ices.

Wrinkly apples:
Quarter, core and fry in butter and brown sugar and serve with clotted cream
peel and grate into salads and cake mix.
Core, stuff with raisins and brown sugar and bake in the oven

Limp veg:
As long as your veg have not started to decompose into primeval slime you can chop them up and turn them into soup.  These are generally known here as botbot soup - BitOfThisBitOfThat.
Or add a can of beans or any cheap cut of meat and slow cook for a delicious stew.

Egg whites and yolks:
Egg whites freeze well, so if you have been making custard and don't fancy whipping up a batch of meringues or macarons at the same time, save the whites for another baking day.
Egg yolks are of course essential to custard, Hollandaise and mayonnaise, so get your sauce on!

Eat leaves and shoots - with apologies to Lynne Truss
Cauliflower and beetroot leaves are delicious; broccoli stems are edible, chop them up and add them to soups; tuck into celery leaves as an addition to an omelette.

Citrus fruits:
If you are about to eat an orange, finely grate the zest first and add to a jar of sugar.  Use for puddings, custards and cakes*
If you need the juice of a lemon, zest it first and keep the grated zest in the freezer for enlivening soups, cakes, curries................
And if life gives you lemons in abundance and no time to make lemonade, freeze the grated zest, then freeze the juice in ice cube trays.  

And please, please if there is a neglected fruit tree or bramble hedge near you - harvest the fruit, do not let it go to waste.

Finally, having used half a pack of dried figs and a bottle of wine we weren't keen on to make  Nigel Slater's fig liqueur, I then created a recipe centred around the ambrosial amber liquid and some stale, but not mouldy, fairy cakes.  Think fig trifle meets Queen of Puddings.

5 stale fairy cakes or slices of leftover sponge cake, crumbled.
Some boozy dried fruit, if you've got it.  Otherwise, soak your dried fruit of choice in port, sherry, apple or orange juice for about an hour.
2 tablespoons of sweet wine, sherry or brandy (optional, but sensational)
250ml full fat milk
3 dessertspoons orange sugar* 
2 eggs.

Pre-heat the oven to 170ºC
Lightly grease a 1lb loaf tin.
Put the broken up cake and the dried fruit in the bottom of the loaf tin.
Pour over your booze of choice - I used the figs and the delicious fennel and maple syrup wine from the Nigel Slater recipe.
Pour the milk into a pan and heat gently to just below boiling.
Whisk the eggs and sugar together and then add the warm milk.  You can use your normal sugar, with or without the addition of some grated orange zest if you haven't got a stash of orange sugar in the cupboard.
Pour this custard over the cake and fruit and place the loaf tin in the oven.
Cook for around 20 minutes, until just set.
Serve warm, not hot.

www.netherton-foundry.co.uk

Netherton Foundry Shropshire 2018 ©

Day trip to Kent

A couple of weeks ago, I packed up the blue van and headed south to Kent for the day.
Yes, I know it's a long way, but when you can be sure of a warm welcome at the other end, it's worth the early start.

The motorways, M42, M40, M25, M26 and M2 were all clear of roadworks and "incidents", making the journey smooth and trouble free.

First stop was Pastures New in Rochester to drop off some new stock; a lovely shop with some delightful, hand painted children's wooden wares.  So if you are on the lookout for a very special, personalised present, go and talk to Sue.

A quick drive around the castle, after all why go all that way and not fit in some sightseeing, then off to Faversham.

At the invitation of the staff, I was spending a "Meet the Maker" day at Macknades Farm Shop, an impressive food emporium, cafe and retailer of Netherton wares.
As warm a welcome as my last visit and the coffee lived up to my memories too.

The product display in the shop looks great and, I guess, even without my standing there in my Netherton apron, regularly attracts a lot of attention.
Numerous staff and customers came over to chat and ask questions and a number of purchases were made too.

One lady even spotted our Twitter notification that I would be there and came over especially to me meet me - I felt like a minor celebrity.

Last time I visited Macknades, was in the autumn and I came home with a bagful of seasonal vegetables which were turned into a Selling Road salad.
This time, I couldn't resist the new season rhubarb and I have created this recipe with Macknade's in mind.  I think I shall call it a Faversham Flavourbomb

Social media and the press are currently awash with rhubarb and blood orange recipes, and as fascinating as it is to see trends emerge and take hold, I fancied adding a different element. 

6 stalks rhubarb

2 dessertspoon orange infused sugar (or granulated sugar and the grated rind of one orange)

50ml water

Cut the rhubarb into 1" long pieces and place in a prospector casserole 
Sprinkle the sugar over the top and pour in the water.

Cover with the lid.

Cook over a gentle heat for about 15 minutes,  until the rhubarb is just cooked.  
Taste and add a little more sugar if it is not to your liking.  Be careful, this will have a sweet topping, so don't go overboard.

120g butter

100g sugar

60g black treacle

2 eggs

Preheat the oven to 170ºC

Separate the eggs.

Melt the butter and treacle together in a saucepan, and set aside to cool a little.

Whisk egg yolks and sugar together in a large mixing bowl until light and fluffy.

If you happen to have a bottle of beer open, add a splash to the eggs and carry on whisking.

Add the melted butter mix to the eggs and whisk again.

Beat the egg whites until stiff and then carefully fold into the egg and treacle mixture.

Spoon this over the cooled rhubarb in the prospector pan.

Place in the oven and cook for 30 minutes.

Serve warm, rather than piping hot either on its own or with Greek yogurt, cream or creme fraiche.

It is lovely and light, but with a rich, sticky toffee flavour.

I reckon this would also work with other sharp fruits such as egg plums or gooseberries, when in season.

© Netherton Foundry 2017

www.netherton-foundry.co.uk

Poached peaches

It's been pretty busy at the workshops, so I apologise for the writing lull - we've been busy with some exciting export orders for USA and Germany, as well as the the first of the events we are attending this year.
We kicked off the festival season at the Severn Valley Railway Food Festival -  a roll down the hill from us at the Engine House Museum at Highley Station.
Last weekend saw us at the 3rd Shrewsbury Food Festival - bigger and better than ever.

As a result, the cooking front has been low on the priority list, with old favourites that require little thought being the order of the day.

But a picture post on Twitter prompted a request for the recipe for these, so here we go.

4 peaches
250ml water
100g sugar
Handful of dried rose petals
4 heads of lavender

Place the water, sugar and flowers in a casserole dish 

                                           

Bring to the boil on the hob and then reduce to a simmer until the sugar has completely dissolved.

Remove the lavender or it will overwhelm the finished dish.

Slice the peaches in to 8 and add to the syrup, cover with the lid.

                                                    

Poach gently until the peaches are soft - this will take from 10 - 20 minutes, depending on how ripe the peaches are........... check with the tip of a sharp knife.

Turn off the heat and leave to infuse for 20 minutes.

Carefully slip the skin off the peaches and transfer the slices to a serving dish.  Leave the skins in the syrup. they will add color and flavour.

Bring the syrup back to the boil and reduce until thick and "syrupy".

Strain and pour over the peaches.

Leave to cool.

 Decorate with edible flowers and, if you have them, a few raspberries (those are tayberries from the garden in the picture)
Serve either with clotted cream and Amaretti biscuits or Mascarpone with icing sugar and grated lemon rind.... and possibly a glass of fizz.

Serves 4

© Netherton Foundry Shropshire 2015

Rhubarb and strawberry cake

I love the combination of these two classic English fruits - yes, I know that rhubarb isn't technically a fruit - the glorious sweetness of an English strawberry contrasting with the sharp bite of the rhubarb.

This works well in pies and crumbles, but as ever, I wanted something a little different and I needed to keep up my 20+ year tradition of trying at least one new recipe a month.

I was lucky enough to receive a copy of Diana Henry's fabulous book Food from Plenty for my birthday last month and was even more delighted when she recommended to me that I start with her apricot and almond cake.
Quite right she was too.............

.... but damn the woman, I am now constantly plagued to know when I am going to make it again.

Soooooooooooo, I decided to have a play around and came up with the following, just hope Diana would like it.

1 large stick of rhubarb - see method
8 small English strawberries
2 oranges
100g sugar

125g butter
125g sugar
2 eggs
170g self raising flour 
2 tablespoons sour cream
NOTE: I tried this with 170g rice flour too for a gluten free alternative  - scrumptious

Finely grate the orange zest and set to one side.
Cut the rhubarb into lengths to fit across a 1lb loaf tin  and place in a saucepan
Add the juice of the 2 oranges along with the 100g sugar.  Poach gently until the rhubarb is soft, but retains its shape.

Taste and add more sugar if needed.  Set aside and leave to cool.

Heat the oven to 170ºC

Beat the butter, sugar and orange zest together in a large mixing bowl until pale in colour.
Add the eggs and beat again.
Fold in the flour and then the sour cream.
Line the loaf tin with oiled greaseproof paper - or use a butter wrapper.
Cut the strawberries in half - or slice them if they are too large.
Carefully lift the rhubarb out of the orange syrup and space it out in the bottom of the loaf tin.  Place the strawberries between the lines of rhubarb. Reserve the orange syrup.

Spoon the cake batter over the fruit and level the top.

Place in the oven and cook for 40 - 50 minutes - or until a skewer poked into the middle of the cake emerges free of gooey mixture :-)

Leave to cool a little and then invert on to a serving plate.

Spoon over the orange syrup and serve slightly warm with cream, Greek yogurt, creme fraiche or, now that you can finally get it here in the UK, Skyr, utterly delectable Icelandic thick yogurt

Serves 8

© Netherton Foundry Shropshire 2015

www.netherton-foundry.co.uk

Caramel banana pudding

A soft, sweet banana pudding - a great way of using up overripe bananas

400ml milk
150g sugar
3 eggs
2 bananas, mashed
125g breadcrumbs

Pre heat the oven to 180º and butter a casserole dish 
Put 100g of the sugar into a pan our saucepans are ideal for this.
Heat gently until it turns golden brown.  Do not be tempted to stir it, just watch closely!!
Carefully pour in the milk - you may want to cover your hand with a cloth, as it can spit.
Stir well to mix and make sure that all of the caramel dissolves into the milk.

Beat eggs with remainder of the sugar
Heat the caramel milk to near boiling and pour over the egg mix. Whisk.
Mash the bananas to a smooth pulp
Put the bananas and breadcrumbs in a mixing bowl and pour over the egg and milk mixture.
Mix thoroughly.

Pour the mixture into the casserole dish and put into the oven
Cook for 20 minutes, until just set.
Remove from the oven and leave to stand for 10 minutes before serving

I served this with an orange caramel sauce made by melting a knob of butter, adding sugar and cooking until just brown.  Stir in the juice of a couple of oranges and a dash of rum. Pour generously over the pudding.
Alternatively, what about some banana and caramel ice cream?

© Netherton Foundry Shropshire 2015

www.netherton-foundry.co.uk

Vegetarian chilli

The power of a picture.....

I was tweeting some stream of consciousness musings about feeding a houseful of teenagers, along with work in progress photos, when I was asked for the recipe for the chilli I was in the middle of preparing.

I had to cater for a group of teenage boys - all of them significantly bigger than me and each with their own food fad - a vegetarian, one who doesn't like baked potato, another who only eats "dry" food (no sauces, gravy, soup..... but with a distinct liking for beer), so the challenge was to come up with something they could all eat.

I settled on baked potatoes, French bread, grated cheese, baked beans and a veggie chilli, so they could help themselves to whichever components they fancied.

Pudding was a no brainer, everyone loves chocolate mousse.

Here are the recipes for the chilli and the chocolate mousse.

CHILLI

2 tbls rapeseed oil

3 onions, sliced

3 cloves garlic

2 tsp cumin seed

2 tsp salt

2 dried chillis

3 sprigs thyme

2 cartons tomato passata - or 2 tins chopped tomatoes

2 tins kidney beans

150g red lentils

2 tsp cocoa powder

1 red pepper, chopped

1 green pepper, chopped

Heat the oil over a medium heat - the cast iron casserole dish is ideal for this quantity of food.

Add the onions and fry until translucent.

Crush the garlic, cumin seeds, salt and chillis with a pestle and mortar and add to the onions.

Fry gently for 2 minutes.

Add the tomatoes/passata, kidney beans, lentils, thyme and cocoa powder.

Simmer for around 40 minutes or until the lentils are cooked.

Add the chopped peppers and cook for a further 15 minutes.

Serve with baked potato, rice or bread.
Serves 8

CHOCOLATE  MOUSSE
200g dark chocolate
8 eggs, separated

Melt the  chocolate in a bowl over a pan of hot water.
Leave to cool, but not set
Beat the eggs yolks.
At this stage you can add extra flavours if you wish, such as grated orange zest, espresso coffee, brandy or even creme de menthe
Add the yolks to the cooled chocolate and mix thoroughly
Whisk the egg whites to a stiff peak.

Beat 2 tablespoons pf the whites into the chocolate mixture to loosen it.
Fold in the rest of the whites and transfer the mousse to individual serving dishes.
Chill in the fridge for at least 2 hours.



Serves 8 - 10

© Netherton Foundry Shropshire 2015

www.netherton-foundry.co.uk

Christmas pudding ice cream

A rather special ice cream for the festive season.


250ml full fat milk
3 egg yolks

250ml double cream
150g mixed dried fruit
A sherry glass of brandy
Juice and grated rind of 1 orange
120g sugar
2 tsp mixed spice

Put the brandy, orange rind and juice, mixed spice and dried fruit in a mixing bow. Stir well, cover and leave for at least 12 hours.

Pour the milk into a saucepan  or milk pan and place over a moderate heat.
Whisk the egg yolks with the sugar
When the milk comes up to blood temperature, pour over the eggs and mix thoroughly.
Return the mixture to the pan and cook GENTLY until the custard covers the back of a spoon.

Pour the custard into a clean bowl and plunge into a bowl of ice cold water.

When the custard has cooled, stir in the dried fruit mix.

In a separate bowl, whisk the cream until it can hold its shape, then fold this carefully in to the custard.

Transfer either to an ice cream maker and follow the manufacturer's instructions 
OR pour into a plastic container and place in the freezer.
If you are using the freezer method, remove from the freezer at hourly intervals and beat to eliminate ice crystals.
Remove from the freezer 20 minutes before serving

© Netherton Foundry Shropshire 2015

www.netherton-foundry.co.uk

Almost Christmas

It is a ridiculously busy time of the year for us - so many people are generous enough to buy Netherton Foundry wares as Christmas gifts for friends and family and the elves are kept busy with the brown paper and string right up until the last minute.

Of course, these may be an ulterior motive behind this gift giving, with the hope of invitations to dinner.... who am I to say?

And as the old advert about puppies said, these are for life, not just for Christmas.

And of course, it's not just at work that life steps up a gear - this afternoon I have been decorating the tree, which we bought from our local farm shop - the smell of fresh pine is wonderful and has lingered in my car too.  Who needs air fresheners?

I've draped the mantlepiece with an evergreen garland - we are lucky enough to have ivy, holly and mistletoe in the garden.  I tried for years to encourage mistletoe into one of our apple trees, crushing the seeds into the bark, all to no avail. Then, one year, entirely untouched by me, one of the other apple trees sprouted a tiny sprig of mistletoe, which has grown and grown.

  

Of course, I've been in the kitchen too - the smell of mixed spice mingling with the pine.  The first batch of mince pies has been made and there's Christmas pudding ice cream in the freezer.

The cakes and pudding were made back in October, so I don't need to worry about those until it comes to icing the cake, an activity usually done on Christmas Eve morning.

Back to today and it's all about edible presents..... or drinkable ones.

In the Autumn I experimented with a change to the usual sloe gin.  We were blessed with a bumper crop of damsons in the garden and the neighbouring hedgerows, so I decided to use them for the fruit spirit this season.

I now have several bottles of spiced damson rum to give away (and one to keep, of course!)

Last week the Beavers made peppermint creams and mini Florentines for their mums and I am just about to get started on a batch of Advent puddings.

I am not sure where the original version of this came from - I have it written in a card index which I've had for more years than I care to remember and over the years I have tweaked and modified it to the recipe that is now my favourite..... and ideal for cooking in one of our loaf tins.

We have christened it Advent pudding, as it is almost - but not quite - Christmas pudding, all the boozy fruitiness, but a bit lighter.

Here's how it's done.

8 oz breadcrumbs

1 apple, cored and cut into quarters (no need to peel it)

1 ripe banana

4 oz walnuts

10 oz raisins

2 oz dried cranberries

6 oz soft brown sugar

3 tsp mixed spice

2 eggs

Grated rind and juice of an orange

Slug of brandy

Put the breadcrumbs, apple, banana and nuts into a food processor and whizz briefly - don't lose all the texture of the nuts.

Turn out into a large mixing bowl and add the rest of the ingredients.

Stir well to mix.  Add a little  milk to bind if necessary.

Line a 1lb loaf tin with greaseproof paper and pour in the mixture.

Fold the paper over the top of the pudding.

Put 1½ litres of water in the base of a casserole and put an upturned saucer in the bottom.

Rest the loaf tin on the saucer and place the lid on the casserole.

Bring the water to the boil, turn down the heat and steam the pudding for 2 hours.

Turn out and serve with custard, brandy sauce, thick cream or creme fraiche.

 

 

© Netherton Foundry Shropshire 2014

www.netherton-foundry.co.uk