Chocolate spiff pudding

I wish I like pudding, desserts and cakes because I love making them. Only two in the family have a sweet tooth and it seems a bit pointless making two small portions of something… and also everyone wants to watch their figures! I was looking in Modern Practical Cookery – well, it was modern in the 1930’s, looking for spring recipes. We have had a day of spring showers today, washing on the line, washing soaked in the rain, washing dried in the sun, washing quickly taken in as it began to rain again. So I was looking for spring recipes, and thought I had found one… spring chocolate pudding, except I’d misread it and it was spiff chocolate pudding… curious…

There are over thirty pages of hot pudding recipes in the book – as well as cold sweets, pastries and ices. I had a quick glance through to see if there were any other unusual puds, and found every sort of fruit pudding you can imagine – my favourite would be ginger fig pudding but I would like about two spoonfuls and then that would be enough!

There were several recipes for puddings using pasta, which does sound strange – spaghetti pudding made with eggs, milk, sugar, flavouring and with the PS that macaroni or vermicelli could be used instead. So spiff chocolate or chocolate spiff…

Spiff chocolate pudding

• ½ lb flour
• 5 oz suet, chopped finely
• 1 oz cocoa
• a few stoned raisins
• ¾ pint milk brought to the boil
• 1 flat tsp carbonate of soda (I guess you could use self-raising flour and do without it!)
• 6 oz moist sugar

1. well grease a pudding basin and decorate the bottom with the stoned raisins to form a “cap”
2. sieve flour and cocoa together and mix in suet and sugar
3. if using the soda, add to the milk and mix well with the dry ingredients
4. pour into the prepared basin, cover with well-buttered paper and steam for 4-5 hours (yes, four to five hours)
5. turn out and serve with chocolate sauce

It sounds very dense… I think I might use the idea of the cap of raisins and make a chocolate sponge pudding with eggs.

If you want chocolate sauce and have none to hand… then here is Modern Practical Cookery’s recipe:

Chocolate sauce

• 1½ tsp cornflour
• 1 dsp cocoa
• ½ pint milk
• sugar
• vanilla

1. mix the cocoa and cornflour to a smooth paste with a little milk
2. heat the rest of the milk and off the heat stir in the cocoa and cornflour paste
3. return to the heat and bring to the boil stirring well
4. add sugar to taste and continue to cook
5. add vanilla and serve

My featured image is of a spring view – looking up!