Slow Cooked: 200 exciting, new recipes for your slow cooker (41 page)

SERVES 4–6 WITH LEFTOVERS

2 tablespoons demerara sugar

200g prunes (see
here
for the Stewed Earl Grey Prunes, which are perfect here)

3 tablespoons boiling water

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

50g butter, cubed

175g demerara sugar

2 eggs

2 tablespoons black treacle

1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

200g self-raising flour

For the toffee sauce:

115g demerara sugar

115g butter

140ml double cream

pinch of salt

Grease a 1.2-litre pudding basin well with butter, not forgetting the lid, and add the 2 tablespoons of demerara sugar. Put the lid on and shake well to help scatter the sugar evenly. Set aside.

Using a hand blender, purée 150g of the prunes with the 3 tablespoons of boiling water until you have a thick consistency. Reserve the remaining 50g prunes and add the vanilla extract to the prune purée.

Cream the butter and sugar together until they are light and fluffy. Add the puréed prunes, both eggs, treacle, bicarbonate of soda and the flour and mix until just combined. Chop the remaining prunes very roughly and stir through.

Pour the batter into the greased pudding basin, leaving about 5cm for the pudding to expand. Put the lid on the basin and place it in the slow-cooker crock. Fill the crock about halfway with boiling water.

Put the lid on the slow cooker. Steam on high for 4 hours. About 10 minutes before you are ready to serve, make the toffee sauce by combining the sugar, butter and cream together in a saucepan with a generous pinch of salt. Melt together over a medium heat for about 10 minutes. Allow to thicken slightly.

Turn out and serve the pudding in slices with a hefty drizzle of toffee sauce. Some ice cream doesn’t go amiss either.

When I first moved to England, I lived near Brighton and was knocked out by the beauty of the South Downs and the surrounding area, even if I desperately missed the regular buses and taxi companies of city life for getting around them. Occasionally I had a weekend off work and my flatmates and I would go to Lewes for a pub lunch. That is where I first encountered the majesty of the Sussex Pond Pudding. When you cut into the light, fluffy suet pastry you find a whole lemon in a little pond of lemon juice, butter and sugar and you will know true joy. I love London, but it’s never offered up dessert like this!

SERVES 4–6 (BEST EATEN PIPING HOT AND FRESH FROM THE DISH)

1 lemon (if waxed, give it a vigorous scrub under the hot tap)

200g self-raising flour

100g suet

75ml cold milk

100g cold butter, cubed

100g brown sugar, preferably demerara

You’d expect such a show-stopping pudding to be tricky to make, but it’s incredibly simple. Impress people with barely any effort.

Grease and flour a 1.2-litre pudding basin. I use a lidded plastic one and if you do too, don’t forget to grease and flour the lid as well. If you couldn’t get an unwaxed lemon, make sure it is dry after scrubbing under the tap.

Mix the flour and suet in a large bowl and add the milk gradually to mix it into a ball. You may not need all the milk so go carefully; you don’t want the dough to be sticky.

Dust your work surface with a little flour and roll out two-thirds of the suet pastry. You want it to be about 2cm thick. Line the basin with it, making sure there are absolutely no gaps.

Put half the cubed butter and sugar into the pastry-lined basin. Prick the lemon all over with a fork and place on top of the butter and sugar. Add the remaining butter and sugar so the lemon is as well covered as possible.

Roll out the remaining pastry so that it makes a lid for the pudding and put it on top of the filled pudding, crimping the edges together with your thumb and forefinger. Cut two holes in the centre to allow the steam out. Put the lid on the pudding basin.

Set the pudding basin into the slow-cooker crock and carefully pour boiling water into the crock until it comes about halfway up the side of the basin.

Put the lid on the slow cooker and steam the pudding for 4–5 hours on high. Carefully lift the basin out and invert the pudding onto a wide plate or platter. Cut into it and watch the lemon pond spread. Serve in bowls and enjoy.

A steamed roly-poly oozing hot, sticky marmalade is the ultimate vehicle for custard. I love a pudding steamed in a basin, but there’s just something about the way you can slice a roly-poly and smother it in custard that’s unbeatable. I bet if I tried hard enough, I could construct an actual custard sandwich out of two slices of this steamy, sticky roly-poly and a tin of Bird’s. Be right back…

SERVES 4–6 DEPENDING HOW POLITELY ONE SLICES THE PUDDING

225g self-raising flour

100g suet

pinch of salt

120ml lukewarm water

200g marmalade or jam

This is very easy to make. Lay out two large sheets of greaseproof paper and foil before you start. I make one long roly-poly and then cut it in half, setting them across the slow-cooker crock as it’s tricky to fit the longer one in a 3.5-litre slow cooker. The roly-poly needs to be wrapped to allow it to steam without getting wet.

Combine the flour, suet and salt in a large bowl. Add about half the water and start to bring the pastry together, adding more water gradually. It should be a firm dough that isn’t too sticky. You may not need all the water.

Turn out the pastry onto a floured work surface and roll it out to about 1cm thick. Don’t knead or overwork the dough as you create a rectangle that’s about 25cm long by 20cm wide.

Spread the marmalade over the pastry, leaving a border of 2–3cm all the way round. Brush the edges with a little bit of warm water and starting rolling the long side of the pastry away from you. Fold the end underneath the roly-poly and stick down. Don’t fold the sides in, but leave them as they are.

Cut the roly-poly in half with a sharp knife and then wrap each one loosely in greaseproof paper, tucking the ends in, but leaving room for the roly-poly to expand. Wrap the greaseproof paper parcels in a further layer of foil, also allowing room to expand. Twist the ends to make sure no water can get in.

Set two shallow ramekins on the base of the slow-cooker crock. The ones that come with posh desserts are the perfect height, I find. Set the roly-poly parcels on them and pour boiling water into the crock until it comes about two-thirds of the way up the ramekins.

Put the lid on the slow cooker and cook on high for 2 hours. The pastry will rise and become light and pillowy, while the marmalade caramelises. I love that the pudding isn’t too sweet, but is still sticky and moreish. Serve slices of the roly-poly in deep bowls with a lake of custard and enjoy!

Christmas is a time for a little luxury but, as this pudding proves, the festive season doesn’t have to break the bank. This is a light Christmas pudding, both in texture and colour. I’ve used breadcrumbs and suet and combined them with apple so the pudding is really moist and doesn’t need lashings of expensive booze to feed it. I’ve also used stout here instead of spirits — a lot more affordable and it gives a great flavour. I usually make my own Candied Peel (see
here
) too. Supermarkets do mixed dried fruit in their basics range and once you’ve soaked it in stout and treacle for a couple of weeks, you’d be hard pushed to know it wasn’t top of the range.

This pudding can be made the day before Christmas, as long as the fruit has soaked for at least 3 days beforehand, or up to 6 weeks before. Leave the cooked pudding sealed in its pudding basin and the flavours will develop over time. As long as you don’t open the basin once it’s cooked, it will keep until Christmas in a cool, dry place. The amounts I’ve given make two 1.2-litre puddings, so halve if you only need one. If you have a 6.5-litre slow cooker, you could do a 2.4-litre pud instead.

Rope in everyone in the house on the day to help you stir the pudding — friends or family. This is the tradition on Stir-Up Sunday – the last Sunday of November – and everyone who stirs gets a wish for the forthcoming year.

MAKES TWO PUDDINGS

500g mixed dried fruit

2 heaped tablespoons black treacle

500ml bottle of stout (or plain black tea)

2 cooking apples

100g Candied Peel (see
here
)

75g glacé cherries

75g almonds, pistachios or pecans (optional)

200g plain flour

115g brown sugar

100g breadcrumbs

100g suet (use vegetarian if you prefer or 100g melted butter instead)

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

1 teaspoon ground ginger

1 teaspoon ground cloves

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1 teaspoon ground allspice

½ teaspoon ground nutmeg

½ teaspoon black pepper

2 eggs

Before you start making the pudding, you need to soak your mixed dried fruit. Put it all into a Kilner jar or airtight container. Don’t add the candied peel or the cherries though. Drizzle the fruit with 1 tablespoon of treacle. Then pour the stout over it all. Leave for at least 3 days or up to a month in the sealed jar. It won’t go off.

I’m using lidded plastic pudding basins here. (I prefer to keep my paper and string antics for the presents at Christmas.) Grease them well with butter and dust well with flour. Don’t forget to do the lids too.

Peel and grate your apples. It doesn’t matter if they oxidise a bit and go brown when you set them aside in this recipe. Place them in a large bowl. Drain the soaked dried fruit, reserving the lovely treacley stout. Place the soaked dried fruit in the same large bowl as the apples. Start adding all the other ingredients, including the extra tablespoon of treacle.

Once you have all the ingredients in the bowl, start stirring. Stirring the pudding will take some effort and it will go from a dark brown to a chestnut brown and look like a loose, puffy batter. Add the reserved treacle-infused stout to loosen it all. When the batter is ready, pour it into the basins, leaving about 6cm of space for the pudding to rise.

Clip the lid on tightly and then place in the slow-cooker crock. Pour boiling water into the crock until it comes halfway up the basin and then steam for 14 hours on high.

Remove the basin from the water and store, without opening, until you need the pudding. Keep it in a cupboard. (If you open the lid, it will allow bacteria in, which is why I like the lidded basins rather than the traditional foil and string arrangement. I also think they work out cheaper than buying lots of foil.)

On the day, repeat the steaming for 6 hours, on low this time, or until needed. This heats the pudding through, but in the slow cooker you just can’t overcook the pudding or have it boil dry. You can also keep the pudding warm if serving at different times.

Carefully remove the pudding from the slow cooker, invert onto a serving plate and serve. If you are more daring, you can douse it in booze and flambé it or simply enjoy with a dollop of brandy butter or cream.

Note:
My spare Christmas pudding kept for 6 months unopened until we devoured it at the photoshoot for the book.

Thank you to all the people who helped and supported me with the book. I have converted many of you to my cult of the slow cooker in the process…

Thank you, in no particular order, to Mike Ward, Lindsay Roberts, Nayan Gowda, Emma Flinn, Lindsay Faller, Rebecca Schaeffer, Alex Lemon, Lyndsay Houlette, Ashley Lewis, Lauren Sudsworth, Eleanor Lawton, Kirsty Marshall, Hannah Kaye, Liza Miller, Ali Hines, Catriona Redmond, Mike Catto, Paddy Brown, everyone at Dombey’s Meats and the Nour Cash and Carry, Brixton, Nicholas Balfe, Sherri Dymond, Brian Danclair, Tony Feenan, Cathy Sloan, the Brixton Blog team, Zoe Jewell, Tim Dickens, Valerie Catto, Adriana Hightower and family, Laura Higginson, Caroline Hardman, Allan Jenkins, Gareth Grundy, Sarah Chamberlain, Donna Corley, Olia Hercules, Catherine Phipps, Nigel Slater, Diana Henry, the endless encouragement of people on Twitter and, of course, my brother Mister North and the rest of my family.

Apologies to anyone I have forgotten or am no longer bringing portions of food to on a regular basis!

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Published in 2014 by Ebury Press, an imprint of Ebury Publishing

A Random House Group Company

Text © Miss South 2014