Apricot Holiday Steamed Pudding for Christmas or maybe even Thanksgiving...

(Those are the zested lemons cut into slices before I make them into lemonade this evening, they look a little dry so I thought I would explain!)

Here is my pudding for this year's Holiday celebrations - I think you could easily make this for Thanksgiving and just let it mature for a few days, or store it away for your Christmas Family Dinner - it is a variation on the usual densely fruit studded, very sweet and divine luscious Christmas Pudding - the likes of which you will find HERE on the beautiful Lavender and Lovage blog.

My Steamed Apricot Pudding is a slight variant on the Apricot Holiday Pudding found in "Glorious Gifts from your Kitchen" by Lisa Yockelson - it does contain SUET (luckily I could get local suet from grass fed, farm raised, humanely treated beef) which is a necessary part of a good traditional steamed pudding so it is not for vegetarians, I do have vegetarian alternatives listed at the bottom of this post - I suppose you could substitute butter for the suet but I think the pudding will be more greasy and I cannot guarantee it's keeping quality as suet is added not only to make a less greasy pudding but also improves the keeping qualities of a pudding made so long before the day it will be eaten.

As you can see I had no real holly to hand so I printed out one of my own designs and made it a little oversized for more wit - et voila, holly is on top of the pudding, an absolute necessity if it is going to be eaten on Christmas Day!! :)

So let's begin!! Have a nice big pasta pot/double boiler ready on the stove with bubbling hot water and make sure the water comes up to only about half way up the sides of your chosen bowl - butter very well a pudding bowl of 2 pint/one quart/4 cup capacity.

ASSEMBLE YOUR INGREDIENTS:

Makes a pudding sized for about 6 people with dainty appetites - this pudding is nowhere near as sweet as the usual pudding so I am assuming people might want larger portions:

6oz/1 heaped cup dried apricots ( I used Turkish apricots, organic and unsulphured thus why they are not bright orange) chopped into 1/3" pieces

4ozs/ 1/2 cup whole milk

4ozs/ 1/2 cup 1/2 and 1/2 or light cream

1 tablespoon of freshly grated gingerroot

1. Put these 4 ingredients into a pan together and simmer very gently on the stove for about 20 minutes until the apricots are nice and soft then strain the apricots and set aside the resultant cream until cool - don't leave this alone it can curdle really quickly, stay with the pan and stir whilst the apricots soften and soak up the milk/cream.

4oz/1 cup white flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon baking soda/bicarb of soda

1 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon ground cloves

2. Sift all of the above together and reserve on a sheet of parchment/baking paper- or a plate - whatever you have to hand - the paper helps you get it into the bowl better as you can curve it to direct the flour etc.

4oz/1 heaped cup of suet - the best quality you can find, grated - best done when the suet is very cold but then allow to warm to room temp.

2oz/ 1/4 cup/ 1/2 stick of salted butter softened to room temperature

4ozs sugar/ 3/4 cup sugar 

Finely grated rind/zest of two, preferably organic, unwaxed, lemons

3. Cream the butter and suet until fluffy and well blended

4. Add sugar and beat until light in colour and even fluffier.

5. Add the lemon zest and blend until evenly distributed.

2 large eggs whisked

1 1/2 ozs/heaped 1/2 cup white bread crumbs

1 teaspoon vanilla essence/extract 

6. Add the whisked eggs in 4 goes and beat between additions.

7. Add the flour/dry ingredients in 2 goes and blend well between additions and add the drained apricot cream alternately.

8. Blend in the apricots gently but evenly.

9. Finally blend in the breadcrumbs.

Ta dah - you have your pudding batter:

Your batter may well look a little curdled but worry not - everything will be OK

10. Spoon the thick batter into the well buttered bowl - there should be quite a bit of space left at the top of the bowl - this pudding expands quite a lot so you don't want it too full:

 11. Cut two circles, one each, of parchment paper and aluminum foil a good bit bigger than your bowl top and secure with rubber bands, then tie string thusly around the bowl so you'll be able to pop it into the steamer and back out without much trouble or burned fingers!

Yes this is a different bowl from a different pudding - I forgot to get a pic of this one before it went in - oops!!

12. Bob your pudding into the steamer and let her steam for 2 hours - check occasionally that there's enough water in there and don't let the pan burn dry - not at all recommended for all sorts of reasons!

13. After 2 hours lift the pudding from the steamer and set on a cooling rack for 10 minutes, then uncover the pudding and allow it to cool completely.

14. Now wrap in waxed/parchment paper and pop into an air tight container until you are ready to reheat for it's debut at either the Thanksgiving or Christmas table - to do such put it back into the bowl it was steamed in - again well buttered and back into a steamer for about an hour until heated through.

For this pudding I made Sticky Toffee Pudding sauce and thickened it a bit with confectioners/icing sugar and slathered atop and added my 'fake' holly, again not traditional, the sauce I mean, but oh so very good:

STICKY TOFFEE SAUCE: 

2 1/2oz/ heaped 1/4 cup brown sugar 

1 1/2 oz / 3 tablespoons salted butter 

 2 tablespoons cream or half and half 

1. Put all three ingredients in a pan to melt together, mix and keep mixing whilst letting it bubble a couple of minutes until it gets a bit thick - allow to cool and then add a tablespoon at a time of confectioners/icing sugar until the sauce gets quite thick then quickly spread on top of the pudding:

As you can see this is a light coloured pudding and it is very light in texture too, it cuts beautifully - a quiet pudding, James says for an American it is most similar in flavour to something like a Date and Walnut loaf - not too sweet but still quite delightful. It is best served warm as the suet makes it a bit dense when cold.

It does definitely need a few days to develop the flavour so it you are thinking of making if for Thanksgiving do so in the next couple of days!!

Happy baking, steaming and Holidays to you all - please let me know if you make this and feel free to post pics on my FACEBOOK PAGE

For the Folkloric Star fabric, also available as wrapping paper, in the pictures click HERE, for the polka dot holly and other polka dot Christmas items click HERE and for the Blue Rhapsody napkins click HERE 

Thank you!!

Vegetarian options for a Christmas Pudding:

New England Christmas Pudding

Traditional Christmas Pudding

Maple Parsnip Pecan Apple Syrup Maple Syrup Cake with Toffee icing also now known as Harvest Cake - phew!!

This is a simple but time consuming cake - a lot like a light, moist carrot cake but more gingery and just GOOD!!! - doesn't take any particular baking skills but there's a lot of components so please do read through the recipe before you start to see what you need to do and when and whether you think the effort is worth it - the original cake HERE (from Tasting Table - recipe by Michel Richard) didn't have any toffee sauce, apple cider syrup or buttercream so you could do that if you want to keep it much simpler :)

This cake improves with time so you may want to make the day before Thankies!!

First make the Apple Cider Syrup and allow to cool completely before use:

APPLE CIDER SYRUP - make lots of this it is really good on pretty much ANYTHING!

If you use 16fl ounces of apple cider (that would be juice in England not alcoholic cider) all you have to do is gently boil it down until there is only 6fl ounces left - that's it! When it cools it will go syrupy - if it doesn't, depending on the water content of your juice, then just simmer it a bit more.

 Allow to cool.

Now make the Sticky Toffee Apple Sauce:

STICKY TOFFEE APPLE SAUCE:

2 1/2oz brown sugar

 1 1/2 oz butter
2 tablespoons cream or half and half 

6 tablespoons apple cider syrup

1. Heat sugar, cream and butter together in a small pan until sugar has dissolved and allow to bubble for a minute or so.

2. Add the apple cider syrup and stir and bubble for a minute or two again - keep warm but not hot.

NOW MAKE YOUR NUT MEAL:

The original recipe uses just almond meal - I chose to go half almond, half pecan so to make 2 cups/7ozs nut meal:

 3 1/2oz pecans and 3/12 oz almonds - toast in a 350f oven for about 10 minutes until the smell is divine and the nuts are toasted but not burnt - be careful not to burn them so do keep an eye out and check every couple of minutes.

Allow to cool COMPLETELY - if they are not completely cold they will get oily when you grind them.

Take some of the flour from the recipe below and put some nuts and flour in a coffee grinder and grind 'til fine - do not overgrind as the nuts will get oily and that's not good for the recipe OR just buy ground almonds/meal from the shops and stop mucking about with nuts!! 

OKEE DOKKEE here we go - have all your ingredients at room temperature and set the oven to 350F. Please try to weigh your ingredients as it is so much more reliable for the recipe to work.

CAKE INGREDIENTS:

  2 cups/7ozs almond meal or very finely ground almonds or half and half finely ground almonds and pecans

¾ cup/2 1/2 ozs white all purpose/plain flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

2 teaspoons ground cinnamon - I don't really like cinnamon so I substituted freshly ground nutmeg

¼ teaspoon salt

1 cup/4 fl ozs pure maple syrup OR 1/2 cup/2 fl ozs maple syrup and 1/2 cup/2 fl ozs apple cider syrup

2ozs toasted whole pecans for decoration

A thing of beauty maple syrup and apple cider syrup together...ahhhh

 8 tablespoons (1 stick)/4ozs unsalted butter, melted - I always use salted myself

2 large eggs whisked

4 teaspoons freshly grated ginger - here's how you peel ginger - with the tip of a spoon - 

2 medium parsnips weighing a total of 4ozs - maybe 5 before you've peeled them - peeled and grated (about 2 cups)

DIRECTIONS:

1. Preheat the oven to 350° and position a rack in the center.

2. Butter the bottom of a 9-inch-round cake pan (I made half the recipe and used a 6" pan as I was testing the cake and there's only two of us but now having eaten the cake I would go for the full size cake as the small one was actually a bit small even for just 2 of us - for Thankies if you want a good sized cake for say 6 people I would actually double this recipe and make a layer cake with more buttercream - always more buttercream!!) and line it with a round of parchment paper. Butter and flour the parchment paper and sides of the pan. (As you can see I stupidly didn't do this parchment part and it would have been easier to extricate the cake if I had!!)

 
3. In a large mixing bowl whisk the almond/pecan meal with the flour, baking soda, cinnamon or nutmeg and salt. Set aside.

 
4. In a large bowl combine the maple syrup, apple cider syrup, melted butter and whisked eggs.

5. Beat at medium speed until well combined, about 1 minute.

6. Stir in the dry ingredients a cup at a time, mixing between each addition until just combined.

7. Finally stir in the ginger and parsnips.

 8. Pour the (very wet) batter into the prepared pan.

 9. Bake for between 40 to 55 minutes until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean and the cake is shrinking away from the sides of the pan:

 Transfer to a wire rack and let the cake cool in the pan for 20 minutes before unmolding. Let cool to room temperature and either keep it plain like this OR let's gild that lily!!!

As you can see this is not a high rising cake - so more is better - in future I would make two small cakes like this and sandwich with the almond buttercream.

Whilst the cake is cooling make the buttercream:

8ozs/2 sticks room temperature butter (yup - I use salted but I know many people use sweet - here the salt really works with the other flavours)

Bag o' icing/confectioner's sugar

2 tablespoons apple cider syrup

1 teaspoon almond essence/extract

Cream butter 'til light and fluffy - slowly add sugar and liquid flavours and beat between additions until you get the taste you like - if the texture goes wonky because of the liquids add more sugar and beat beat beat it should come back together.

Now pipe the buttercream as you wish - I do a circle on the top which forms a wall for the apple toffee sauce - and place the toasted pecans as you wish - every other piped rosette is the way I go - now admire your work and IF YOU CAN STAND IT wait til the next day to eat it - it improves with flavour overnight!!!! - otherwise get the kettle on and eat the whole thing NOWWW!!!!

 HAPPY THANKSGIVING EVERYONE!!

Happy Baking, let me know if you make it and please post your pics of PARSNIPPY goodness on my Facebook page HERE!!!

I just entered this recipe into the

Extra Veg Blog Challenge

 

held by Kate at Veggie Desserts,  Helen at Fuss Free Flavours and Michelle at Utterly Scrummy

 and also this Tea Time Treats Round up at The Hedgecombers and Lavender and Lovage

THANKSGIVING GUIDE
CHEFS' RECIPES
LOCAL PICKS
NATIONAL PICKS
SOUS CHEF SERIES





            



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      Enjoy this story from our archive, originally sent to TT members on 11/4/2010.
    


    
            
    
    
    



              
      



       Carrot's Cousin

An easy cake that screams autumn  

     

Chef Michel Richard is righ

Maple-Parsnip Cake  

Recipe adapted from Sweet Magic: Easy Recipes for Delectable Desserts, by Michel Richard (Harper Collins) 


Yield: One 9-inch cake  

INGREDIENTS 

2 cups almond meal or very finely ground almonds

¾ cup all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

¼ teaspoon salt

1 cup pure maple syrup

8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter, melted

2 large eggs

3 teaspoons freshly grated ginger

6 medium parsnips, peeled and grated (about 2 cups)

½ cup toasted pecans


 DIRECTIONS   
1. Preheat the oven to 350° and position a rack

4. Pour the batter into the prepared pan and scatter the pecans over the top. Bake until a toothpick inserted






 in the center comes out clean, about 40 to 55 minutes. 






Transfer to a wire rack and let the cake cool in the pan for 20 minutes before unmolding. Let cool to room temperature, slice and serve.





Read more: http://www.tastingtable.com/entry_detail/chefs_recipes/2314//An_easy_cake_that_screams_autumn.htm#ixzz2CcciTOQy

Steamed Cranberry Pudding with Green Hive Honey Sauce for Thankies!!

Oh no!!! I appear to have steamed up the whole neighbourhood!!

Actually this little delight only takes about 1/2 hour of steaming instead of the usual 3 hour puddings I make here on my blog so one doesn't have to wait until the cows come home for Steamed Cranberry Pudding with Green Hive Honey Sauce to be ready. This pudding is both bright and subtle...is that possible, it is not very sweet but you can add more sweetness by either changing the fresh cranberries to dried sweetened ones or add a few tablespoons more of sugar or honey to both the pudding and the sauce? I have added more sweet than the original recipe, so that couldn't have been sweet at all, which is actually a combination of a couple of recipes from

"Good and Wholesome Honey Recipes" by the American Honey Institute...a goodly book with some nice old-fashioned recipes therein.

 

The jewel like pudding with it's crown of lemony honeyfied goodness on the top.

A celebration of my disorganized cooking method which involves covering every possible surface with every kitchen implement known to man and sticky powdery ingredients...all without tidying up first...I just have to accept that I am a messy worker both as a baker and an artist and that's an end of it!!

  

 I like the looks of the cranberries halved and ready to be tossed in the sifted dry ingredients...I suppose you could use dried sweetened cranberries if you don't like the brightness of fresh from the bog ones, I would even keep the quantity the same in dried as in fresh.

 

 And now for the recipe....

THE CRANBERRY STEAMED PUDDING

This makes enough for two nice sized puddings, I used two pudding bowls of 1 cup capacity, 4" diameter Mason Cash #54 if that means anything to anyone...a good sized portion for a hearty eater...big enough for two who are already full to the gills with turkey, gravy,

mashed potatoes and the rest...

First avail yourself of a double boiler and get the water up to heat, simmering in readiness:

1 tablespoon/ 1/2oz butter

1 1/8 cup/5ozs white flour

1 cup fresh cranberries halved (when you wash them in a big bowl of water you can discard the ones that sink...they are not good)

1/2 cup/4 fl ozs whole milk

1/3 cup/4ozs honey...of course I used raw Green Hive Honey as I just finished designing their label and their honey is divine!!

4 tablespoons sugar

1/2 an egg beaten...yes I know half an egg!...but I cut the recipe in half for just two puddings - one for me and one for James or we'd HAVE to eat two puddings each and that's just too much temptation.

1 teaspoon almond extract/essence

1 teaspoon ground ginger and 1 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg

1 slightly heaped teaspoon baking powder

1. Sift dry ingredients together.

2. Toss the halved cranberries in the dry ingredients and then remove from the flour mix shaking excess off.

3. Cream the butter 'til nice and soft.

4. Add sugar and continue creaming.

5. Add honey in 3 batches and cream, cream, cream.

6. Add half of egg and CREAM.

7. Add a third of the sifted dry ingredients and alternate with a third of the milk until everything is added and you have a smooth batter.

8. Fill already buttered pudding bowls about 3/4 full and cover with waxed or parchment  paper rounds and secure with an elastic band.

 

  One of the puddings ready to be popped into the steamer for her 1/2 hour sauna.

During this time you can make up the sauce...see below below..

 

 Like two puddings in a double boiler...nice and toasty warm!! Good for a foggy day in Maine.

 

 Here's how your pudding will look when you remove it from the pan and then remove the paper...it will look a bit sticky and gluey but it's OK that's just the top. Use a toothpick to test for doneness...stick the toothpick deep into the pudding and if it comes out clean...with no uncooked batter remnants on it...then it is done.

After about 10 minutes out of the steamer cover the pudding with it's final receptacle and turn upside down to deliver if from it's pudding basin...and thus you have the little treasure seen below.

 

The Honey Sauce Recipe:

1/4 cup/4 tbsp/2 oz butter

1/4 cup/3oz honey

4 tbsp sugar

1 tbsp flour

1 egg

1/8 cup/1 fl. oz lemon juice (juice from an average half lemon)

1/4pt/2 fl oz UK whipping/double  cream whipped to stiff.

1. Melt butter, sugar and honey together in the top of a double boiler with gently boiling water.

2. Cream the flour with some of the egg until there are no lumps and add to honey and butter and whisk.

3. Gradually add the rest of the egg whisking all the time...be careful not to let the mix curdle or overcook...keep water on a gentle boil.

4. When mixture has thickened slightly whisk in the lemon juice and continue to let it thicken a bit more.

5. Allow to cool.

6. Fold in the whipped cream and slather on recently steamed cranberry pudding!!! Cool sauce - hot pudding - nice combo!!

Happy Thanksgiving One and All...here are some images from a foggy November day in Maine.

 See you after Thankies and we move on to Christmas!!! YEA!!!!

A neighbourhood reprieve and Quince Frangipane Tart for Thanksgiving!

'Ello, 'Ello!!!

YEA!!! These beauties were saved from the table this Thanksgiving by my lovely neighbour Rita, she was planning on having them for dinner but decided they were just too friendly and gorgeous to say "goodbye" to....good on ya Rita, they are a lovely rafter or gang (correct group name!) of turkey's.... just look at those faces!! Their colours are beautiful...pink, blue and red...very handsome...

...and below is one of their witty and ever so sweetly noisy companions, they make a little trilling sound...a guinea fowl, aren't their faces adorable...they really do look like clowns with serious stage make-up and funny little hair do's.

In celebration of their reprieve I made a quince frangipane tart...it's rather like the Bakewell tart I did a while ago, in fact VERY like it with basically the addition of grated quince. I actually found these quince at Hannaford's. They were incredibly underripe...very green... but they did have a good smell which apparently is indicative of the possibility that they may indeed ripen. I waited until they were as yellow as I think they were ever going to get, and they smelled quite fragrantly of pineapple. Quince must be cooked in order to be eaten, they are mealy and astringent when raw, if you poach them they turn a delicate pink.

Here is the recipe:

QUINCE AND FRANGIPANE TART
Tart shell from Martha, a pate brisee...extremely reliable, very good, stays crisp, I've added more sugar than the recipe says and it's a good addition. The recipe here is for one 8-9" shallow pie but I made two small tarts with the same amount.

1 1/4 cups of white flour
2 tablespoons sugar
1 stick (4ozs) butter I always use salted, VERY cold
1/8 to 1/4 cup ice cold water

1. Sift the flour

2. Grate the butter into the flour.

3. Gently work butter into flour until it resembles coarse meal.

4. Add some of the water and test to see if it comes together, if not keep adding water until the dough will squush into a non-sticky ball.

5. Put into the fridge to rest whilst you make the filling.

The frangipane:
3 1/2 ozs almonds, toasted

3 1/2 ozs butter softened

1 3/4 ozs white flour unbleached

3 1/2 ozs white sugar

2 eggs, beaten

1 teaspoon each vanilla and almond extract/essence

2 ripe quince - peeled, cored and grated

Some apricot preserves....the amount depends on your tastebuds

SET OVEN TO 400F

1. When the almonds have cooled after toasting grind them either in a coffee grinder in small batches with some of the flour in each batch to stop the nuts becoming oily or do all the almonds and all the flour in a food processor until fine.

2. Add the sugar and extracts.

3. Mix in the softened butter very well.

4. Add the beaten eggs and mix.

5. Mix in the grated quince and set mixture aside.

NEXT: Roll out the pastry and line your chosen case/s - dock/prick small holes in the pastry with a fork  so it doesn't puff up during baking, line with some parchment paper and fill with beans or pie weights - blind/pre-bake the pieshell for about 12 minutes in a 400F oven.

Allow the pieshell to cool and spread the desired amount of apricot preserves over the bottom...I like just a smattering to give a little tang to the tart...you may have more if you like, I give you permission to do so!! Tee hee.

NOW: Spread the frangipane on top of the preserves and spread evenly.

Bake in a 400F oven for about 30 minutes or until the whole top of the tart is golden brown and the mixture is obviously set.

Allow the tart to cool, it definitely tastes best at room temperature.


The quince adds a very unusual but not strange delicate, almost perfumey taste to the tart...something you haven't quite tasted before but yet it is somehow familiar. Well worth hunting around for this odd combination of apple and pear shaped fruit, which are only available at this time of the year.

HAPPY BAKING AND HAPPY THANKSGIVING

YEA FOR THE NEIGHBOURHOOD TURKEYS AND RITA!!!!