Читать книгу The Vicar’s Wife’s Cook Book - Elisa Beynon - Страница 19

This is a summer pudding for a British spring day. In fact, it’s far nicer than genuine summer pudding, which I personally find a bit damp and soggy. Here, the bread adds a crispy contrast to the slushy summer fruits. I served it with clotted cream to give a nod towards real, sunny summer and the delights of cream teas. The father-in-law, ungrateful so-and-so that he is, said that, ‘for his part’ pouring cream would have been preferable. As the old blighter was already on his third portion by this point, his wife chastised him for his criticism and the Vicar merely begged to differ.

approx. 7 slices of white bread, cut about 1.5cm thick, crusts removed

125g butter, 50g melted and the rest at room temperature

250g raspberries

150g blueberries

150g blackberries

3 tablespoons caster sugar, according to taste, plus extra for dusting (optional)

clotted cream, to serve

You’ll need either an 850ml pudding basin or a souffle dish.

Whilst I prepared the fruit, I got the men on to the bread bit. Before I could stop them they had sliced nearly a whole loaf – some of it extremely badly. However, they made up for it by coming up with the idea of only applying melted butter to one side of the bread and smearing the other 50g of the fresh stuff on the other. The bread has to line the dish, and they decided that freshly spread butter made an ideal glue to stick it to the sides. They were right.

For the fruit: in a pan, lightly cook the berries with the sugar and the remaining 25g of softened butter over a medium heat for about 3–4 minutes. You want the fruit to soften very slightly but still retain its shape. Leave to cool if possible (I didn’t have time).

Line the dish with about 5 slices of the buttery bread, overlapping them slightly and leaving no gaps, then pour in the fruit. Seal the top with the remaining bread by trimming and pushing it inside the edge of the upright bread; put a saucer on it and a bag of sugar, or something else quite heavy. After 30 minutes, take off the bag of sugar, leaving on the saucer, and put the dish in an oven preheated to 200°C/Gas Mark 6 for 30 minutes. After this time, remove the saucer with an oven glove and put the pudding back in for a final 5–10 minutes or until golden on top. Leave to rest for 10 minutes.

To serve, you could invert the pudding onto a plate if you want to look fancy, or serve it straight from the bowl or dish, cut into slices. Serve with cream (the pouring stuff, if John Beynon is a guest) and a little dusting of caster sugar, if you wish.