Apple and Lemon Curd for Great Maine Apple Day

 

As you can see Great Maine Apple Day is coming up pretty sharpish and I have two recipes in store to celebrate this day - today it's Apple and Lemon Curd, a recipe adapted from "Country Harvest - A Celebration of Autumn" by Linda Burgess and Rosamond Richardson - and then Friday I'll post the recipe for Apple Parkin Slice

And so we begin by assembling our small cast of characters, six in all, for the recipe - I collected some windfall apples from our ancient apple trees out the back...they are a bit knarly and lumpy but ended up tasting great in the curd!

THE RECIPE: In weights as that is more reliable (see why here ) and to help you out here is a link to a great conversion site  

1lb of your preferred apples chopped small

5 fl oz water

7oz sugar

2oz butter ( I always use salted - I like that taste in sweet things)

1 teaspoon (more or less according to your taste for it) freshly grated nutmeg

3 egg yolks whisked together

Juice and zest from two lemons (preferably organic when you are using the zest)

1. Put apples and water in a heavy bottomed pan and cook on medium until very soft - this took forever with my windfalls but when I made it with apples from local farmers it went pretty fast.

2. Press the apples through a sieve - you only need to do this if you want it really smooth but I was surprised at the amount of stubborn lumps I got that didn't squush through the sieve - so I would recommend doing this.

3. Return apple squush to pan, add sugar, nutmeg and lemon juice and zest and cook until sugar dissolves.

4. Add a little of the hot apple sauce to the egg yolks and quickly whisk together so eggs don't cook and curdle, then add a little more and do the same - you are tempering the eggs here so as not to end up with scrambled eggs.

5. Add the egg/apple sauce back in to the pan with the remainder of the apples sauce and cook gently until it begins to thicken - keep stirring and do not boil or again you will end up with scrambled egg yuck!! :(

6. Take the sauce of the heat and add the butter bit by bit - stirring and blending between each addition.

7. Allow to cool and do as you will with your lovely Apple and Lemon Curd - apparently this does not keep well so don't plan on bottling and using later - perhaps you'll like this as much as I do and it won't have the chance to stay around. This is also a good reason not to do too large of an amount at once...it needs to be fresh to be good unlike lemon curd which can be bottled and kept.

Happy Curding NOT curdling!

"Created by Mother Nature - Nurtured by Local Farmers" fabric from my Spoonflower shop

And here's the luscious finished curd - tangy, bright and with some tooth - not as smooth as lemon curd but honestly just as good. I used mine in a meringue tart so I could use up the leftover egg whites but also had it on buttered toast - divine!! - and it could easily and charmingly be the filling in a layer cake, or on the top of scones or a side for a roast of some sort - I'm not a meat eater so I'll leave it to your imagination as to which meat it would accompany well - the combination of fruit and meat is big in England so maybe I am remembering tastes of yore from my childhood.

Do let me know how your curd came out!

Sussex Pond Pudding revealed!!

Before you begin making the pud get your big old steamer/double boiler out...I use a nice big double boiler that came with a spaghetti strainer, also find yourself a 3 cup (24 fl oz) basin or bowl that you can steam. The double boiler, or steamer, should take the depth of the bowl with a fitted lid not touching the top of the bowl!! Put the empty bowl into the top of the boiler and fill with cold water until it comes to about 3/4 way up the side of the bowl, take the empty bowl back out, put the lid on and start the heat 'til the water is doing a nice rolling boil. Then butter well the inside of your cute little bowl. Set aside. Then cut out a round of parchment big enough to fit the top of the bowl and down the sides about 3/4", butter this parchment...then also cut out a round of aluminium foil the same size....now you're ready....off we go!!

This dessert is not vegetarian!...but it can be if you use butter instead of suet in the dough.

For the dough:
1 ½ cups of white flour, about 7 ozs
2 teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
3 oz shredded suet, just less than 1 cup (you can use butter here if you like but it doesn't work as well as the suet...the butter can make the dough greasier and heavier so try to get suet if you can)
3/8 cup/about 3 fl ozs iced water
2 tablespoons sugar

For the filling:
2 lemons, organic is preferable as you will be using the entire lemon
½ cup/4 oz light brown sugar
6 tablespoons/3 oz butter cut into small pieces

To make the dough: 1. Whisk the flour, baking powder, salt and sugar together in a bowl.

2. Rub the suet in by hand or pulse in a processor until the mix resembles coarse meal.

3. Add the water bit by bit and blend until you have a soft dough.

4. Refrigerate for at least ½ hour preferably one hour.

5.Now, take the well rested dough out of the figerdator and roll out two circles, one large enough to line your bowl and one large enough to cover the top of the bowl. Again I am using my trusty 3 cup bowl which I have buttered well prior to lining with my dough.

6. I tried this pudding twice, the first time I did it the traditional way which is to just put the lemons whole into the dough case, I added a few small calamondin oranges which I had growing on a small tree in my living room...you pop the lemons in and add the butter and sugar....this is for radical lemon lovers...the lemons were hard for even me to eat and I like very bright tart flavours, so the second time I sliced the lemons...I didn’t have any oranges left, and layered them with the butter and sugar. I much preferred the sliced lemons but also think the oranges added a bit of mellowness to the flavour so it’s up to you if you’d like to add some orange slices to the mix.

7. Now pop your little round dough top on the pud, wet the inside dough all around the edge then fold the inside dough over the top dough and squeeze together to form a seal over the top, you don’t want your pond leaking out do you.

8. Tie up your little pudding thus...... cover with the round of parchment, then with foil and then put a couple of elastic bands around the top edge of the bowl to make the parchment and foil somewhat airtight, THEN use string to tie like a package, this really helps you retrieve the bowl from the pot without burning the crap out of your fingers!!! Pop into your delightful, delovely steam bath....

...and boil for three hours non-stop, make sure to keep checking the water level so it doesn't dry out......take the pud out of the water bath, do not worry if your pud looks as unappetizing as the picture below...like a sticky, dense stodgy mess...that is normal as it is almost impossible to stop the top of the pud from getting somewhat soggy in the steaming process..... allow to cool for about 10 minutes then invert it onto a plate with a deep centre, don’t use a flat or shallow plate or you’ll have a nice sticky mess on your hands....

.....cut into the pud et voila out pours your pond!! I am thinking there may be another reason it is called a Sussex Pond Pudding and that’s because after you have done the water bath for three hours the contents of the pan look somewhat akin to a pond in high summer....inevitably some of the ingredients have leaked out into the water and end up as a bubbling mess....but we don’t really need to discuss this any further do we.

This is a fun pudding for a dinner party presentation where your guests don’t know what’s in the pud...it’s quite the treat seeing the juices flow but beware you better love bright lemony flavors!! The dough was intriguing albeit a little spongy and soggy in parts but nevertheless quite nice and unusual, certainly NOT a light pudding by any stretch of the imagination, but when your bones are chilled after a day out in the snow and wind it’ll certainly satisfy any craving you have for a stick-to-your-ribs dish!!

I am starting a previous recipes page - please take a look below the masthead above for other curious and wonderful British Puddings - thanks!!

Please consider joining me on my Facebook page for more British puddings - both intriguing and not, my artwork updates and pictures of beautiful Maine - thanks and happy steaming!

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