British puddings have a long and honourable history. Dishes that suggest the homely and comforting. Winter days when puddings such as spotted dick or baked crumbles served with sublime custard, or thick chilled cream, evoke both memories and anticipation. Warm summer days and the sweet and melting taste of Summer Pudding. The taste of Savoury Puddings too are much loved and not forgotten. Great British Puddings presents pudding recipes, some familiar, others less familiar. We do hope that you find them both useful and interesting.
If you have a special recipe of your own please send it and we will publish it for you. Comments about individual recipes are also very welcome.
What is a British Pudding
Most people living within the British Isles would I expect know the answer to this question. Also too places in world where early immigration has established traditions that evince themselves both in the kitchen and language usage. Any sweet dish served directly after the main course is often called - Pudding - thus invoking the question "What are we having for pudding?".
Sweet puddings can be referred to as Deserts. Cooking techniques include: Boiling. Baking. Steaming. There are also some pudding where cold preparation is used.There is no definitive definition a what constitutes a British Pudding. Their history is long and complex, their diversity wide ranging.
The origins of the tart are not clear, however the generally accepted story is that it was first made by accident in 1820 when the landlady of the White Horse Inn, (now called the Rutland Arms) left instructions for her cook to make a jam tart. The cook, instead of stirring the eggs and almond paste mixture into the pastry, spread it on top of the jam.[1] When cooked the jam rose through the paste. The result was successful enough for it to become a popular dish at the inn, and commercial variations, usually with icing sugar on top, have spread the name.[2] The name is believed to have come from a customer who decided that the tart was "baked well" thus the inn called it their "Bakewell" tart, a pun on the town of Bakewell and a well baked tart.
"I know the look of an apple that is roasting and sizzling on the hearth on a winter's evening, and I know the comfort that comes of eating it hot, along with some sugar and a drench of cream... I know how the nuts taken in conjunction with winter apples, cider, and doughnuts, make old people's tales and old jokes sound fresh and crisp and enchanting."
Pieces of beef steak and kidney in a brown sauce, steamed in a bowl lined and covered with suet pastry. It is considered now the quintessentially English dish, but the kidney seems to have been added only in the mid-nineteenth century it first appears in one of Mrs. Beeton's recipes. Before that a plain steak pudding filled the same national role, being known as - John Bull's pudding - in a beef-oriented tradition which includes - The Roast Beef of Old England.
(1669) The Closet Of Sir Kenelm Digby Knight Opened
If, as Shakespeare said, |all the world's a stage,' then few can match the range of roles played by 17th century chemist Sir Kenelm Digby. Besides being a scientist, he was a naval commander, diplomat, poet, chef, astrologer and magician. In a list of prospective founding members of the Royal Society, he is described as |courtier, chemist.' The Venetian ambassador to England called him |nothing but a thief and a pirate.'
