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
- well grease a pudding basin and decorate the bottom with the stoned raisins to form a “cap”
- sieve flour and cocoa together and mix in suet and sugar
- if using the soda, add to the milk and mix well with the dry ingredients
- pour into the prepared basin, cover with well-buttered paper and steam for 4-5 hours (yes, four to five hours)
- 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
- mix the cocoa and cornflour to a smooth paste with a little milk
- heat the rest of the milk and off the heat stir in the cocoa and cornflour paste
- return to the heat and bring to the boil stirring well
- add sugar to taste and continue to cook
- add vanilla and serve
My featured image is of a spring view – looking up!
That sounds very heavy, not in keeping with today’s tastes but I bet it was welcome after a hard day on the building site or farm.
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… and with no central heating just the thing to keep warm!
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