COOKBOOKS GALORE

I recently bought a set of 4 mini pudding basins, so had to try them out. I love the combination of chocolate and ginger so decided these flavours would be in my little sponge puddings. The only drawback to these puds is that they need to be steamed. Maybe you could do them in the microwave? Have made a large sponge pudding in my microwave, so perhaps these little ones would work too? Lightly grease 4 small pudding basins [ I got mine from Lakeland]. Put 100g soft margarine or butter, 100g sr flour, 100g caster sugar, 25g cocoa powder and 2 eggs in a bowl and beat together. Chop up 25g dark chocolate and 50g stem ginger and add to the batter. Spoon between the 4 basins  up to 3/4 full. Cover the top with circles of parchment paper then a pleated piece of foil. Steam for about 45 mins till puddings are springy and cooked. To serve with them  - chocolate custard. Beat 2 egg yolks with 1 tbspn caster sugar and 1 tbspn cornflour to make a nice smooth paste. Heat 300ml...

These day, I only make puddings when we have friends or family for a meal - they seem to expect it! I wanted to make something tasty, but not stodgy.  Hunting through my cookery books, I found one I'd bought a few years ago from the famous 'Pudding Club' in 'Three Ways House' in Chipping Camden. If you've nor heard of this club, it was founded in 1985 to save our great British puddings. At the time, puddings were looked on with horror - much too fattening. So the club meets, eat their main course and then 7 different puddings are brought out and devoured. At the end of the evening, they vote for the best one. Looking through the book, many of the pudds are very filling ,but I found one that was marked as 'healthy', and it does contain fruit, nuts and honey and very little fat. I suppose with the latest bad press for sugar, 120g would be classed as a lot, so perhaps it wouldn't be classed as 'healthy'! Many of the puddings are steamed, but...

My Mum used to make this when I was young, but I'd forgotten about it till I was looking in her recipe book the other day. I thought it was magic because the mixture goes in mixed together and comes out as a sponge top and a lovely lemon sauce underneath. As I had a few lemons to use up it was the perfect pudd. for today. My husband  thought it was too sweet, and it does have a lot of sugar in it. Maybe I would use less another time. 3oz/90g soft margarine or softened butter 9oz/275g caster sugar 3 eggs, separated 3oz/90g sr flour grated rind and juice of 2 lemons 3/4pt/425ml milk Preheat oven 180C/gas4/350F Grease a 2 pt/just over a litre pie dish. In a big bowl beat together the margarine or butter, sugar, egg yolks, flour, rind and juice and the milk. It might look curdled, but don't worry, all will be well. Mine wasn't curdled and I wondered what I'd done wrong! Whisk the egg whites till they form soft peaks and fold this gently into the lemon mix...