Steamed sponge pudding with my mum’s marmalade. And Custard!

I’ve finally got round to doing that sponge pudding with the marmalade I made in January. It turned out belter! Light, sticky, tangy and sweeeet.

I served it for a wine and food evening last week. The French guests apparently expressed concern that English patisserie wouldn’t be up to much. I won them over. It may not be common knowledge over here, but the British are very good at this kind of thing!

Steamed Marmalade sponge

8oz/225g butter, softened

6oz/175g sugar
2 lemon zest
1 orange zest
Seeds from a vanilla pod – if you have it. Don’t worry if not.

Fresh ginger, grated. The size of a fat man’s thumb. This is optional too (you can put in some all or none of the flavourings...)

4 eggs

8oz/225g Self-raising flour – or, if you live in france, 225g normal flour + ½ a packet of levure chimique (5g/1tsp baking powder)

A pincho salt
2 lemon juice

A big fat dollop of golden syrup
A big fat dollop of (ideally My Mum’s)Marmalade.

You will need a 2 pint pudding basin (or something which will approximate to one), and a pan or steamer with a lid, in which it will comfortably sit. And some foil (or baking parchment + muslin + string).

Before you forget, smear a bit of butter all over the inside of your pudding bowl, then tip in some flour and roll it around so as to entirely coat in a thin layer of white. Discard any excess. Spoon in a generous dollop of golden syrup and then the same of marmalade. Does it look like there will be plenty of syrupy lava splooging down the sides of the cake when it is cooked and unleashed? If not, add a bit more of both. Good work!

Now cream the butter, sugar and your chosen flavourings until white and fluffy. It’s important to get plenty of air in. And that your butter isn’t hard, or you’ll be there all day...

Mix in the eggs, one at a time.

Add sifted flour and salt. Mix gently until uniform.

Spoon on top of the syrup in your bowl. Try to ensure all the syrup is covered by the cake mix.

Butter the underside of a peice of foil and loosely cover the bowl. You can use a piece of greaseproof paper, buttered and with a pleat in, just hanging over the edge of the bowl. Next, a muslin covers that, also with a fold in it, which must be secured with string. This is the old fashioned way of doing things, but I’ve tried both, and the second method is just a lot more faff for no benefit at all...

Place in your steaming device for 1 ¼ - 1 ½ hours. Don’t let it boil dry! It’s cooked when it is springy to the touch, and a skewer inserted will come out clean.

Turn out while still hot and eat the glorious, steaming sponge, and it’s frankly dangerous molten lava topping, with a very generous puddle of custard. If you have the good fortune to be dining with abstemious types, eat theirs too!  

Proper Custard

This is a rich crème anglaise. If you’re feeling a bit more frugal, you could substitute the cream for more milk and perhaps change 4 of the egg yolks into a whole egg...

200ml/ ⅓ pint Double cream (or milk, if frugal)

300ml/ ½ pint Milk (not skimmed! What’s the point in that?...)
A vanilla pod (use the one you scraped the seeds out of for the sponge – or a splash of vanilla extract)

5 egg yolks (or 1 if frugal)

1 whole egg (or 2 if frugal)
30g/1oz Sugar

Heat the milk and cream with the vanilla in a saucepan.

Rest a sieve on top of a bowl big enough to contain all the ingredients. Put it somewhere close to the stove. You will need it later.

When the milk is hot, reduce the heat and combine the sugar and eggs. Beat till light and a bit fluffy.

Pour half the hot liquid into the egg. Mix thoroughly. Don’t mess about – the eggs will cook in the milk so you need to be quick to avoid scrambling.

Pour your eggy mix into the remaining milk in the pan. Over a lowish heat whisk the custard diligently  till it starts to thicken. Make sure you scrape the whisk over every part of the pan bottom, especially the corners. You will start to see traces from the whisk in the thickening custard. Still whisking, remove from the heat and immediately pour through the sieve into your waiting cool bowl.

If, in spite of your best efforts, the custard has still split, fret not. Give it a good old blitz with a hand blender (the saviour of many a batch of crème brulée ) and it will come back, albeit a little less thick.

Serve hot and fresh-made or cold. Don’t try to reheat it, it will almost certainly split.

Sponge pudding and custard. If you don’t like this I pity you...

My Mum's Marmalade

Seville oranges are in the market. It’s time to make marmalade. The season is short so it’s now or next year. I’m not a big fan of marmalade – or any jam – on toast, but Dot is, and I think it’s cool so I like to make it. This attitude has got me into trouble in work before now. When I was a pastry chef in Liverpool I ordered a case of bitter oranges for no other reason than that they were in season. The next day a staggeringly large box appeared. The biggest batch I could reasonably muster in a day, and still get my other work done, didn’t nearly use half: I ran out of sugar; it took hours chopping up the rind as finely as possible, getting all sticky with pulp...

The Chef said I needed to get my priorities straight. He pointed out all the other things I should have been doing rather than “having a nice time making marmalade!”

– And what are you going to use it for?

– Um...

I hadn’t really thought about that... Of course there are plenty of ways to use it: steamed sponge puddings with custard; ice cream; sorbet; stuff with dribbles of dark chocolate sauce and bittersweet orange syrup intermingled; toast... Orangey dessert combos were created. I had a nice time. When I ought to have been doing something else...

When I bought my oranges, the lady at the stall trilled Qu’est-ce que c’est bon, la confiture d’oranges amères!* . And I thought I was the only marmalader in town! Clearly not. Although the British definitely love it more. We've invented a much cooler name...

As with most preserving escapades, the tricky bit is finding enough jars. The rest is a piece of... well, it’s easy.

Don’t forget to sterilize the jars. Wash in hot soapy water, rinse well and drain, upside-down, on a rack in the oven set to 140°C. They’ll be fine in there till you’re ready for them.

I bought just over a kilo of oranges – 7 fruit – for every 4 or 5 you’ll need a lemon. Unwaxed. Chuck in a pan with a thick base, large enough to comfortably accommodate all at once. Cover generously with water and boil for a couple of hours, till the fruit is soft and soggy. (You might need a weight to stop them from bobbing above the level of the water).

Put a few small plates or saucers in the fridge to cool.

How much sugar?! I had enough. Just.

Once soft, remove all the fruit, drain a bit, and weigh. Reserve the liquor. You will need 2lb of sugar and 1 pint of liquor for every lb of fruit. This seems like a lot of sugar. It is. But it is necessary. Dissolve your sugar in your measured liquor (if you don’t have enough, add water).

Meanwhile prepare the oranges and lemons: chop into quarters and scoop out the seeds and flesh into a bowl. These citrus innards contain the pectin that will set your marmalade so they need tying up in a tea towel or muslin, then adding to the sugary liquid. Next, scrape your petals of fruit to reduce the amount of pith on your ‘bits’. This should also be reserved, chopped up a little, and added to the mix. Then slice the skins as finely as possible – or in big bits, if you’re bold or lazy – and into the pot too.

Weigh. Quarter. Scoop. Depith. Chop. Chop. Chop. Sticky.

The jam should be boiled fairly fiercely until it reaches around 104° (obviously, be careful – don’t walk off). I have recently acquired a thermometer to give me an idea but you can tell by looking; it starts to appear jammy. It could take between 10 mins to half an hour. In spite of my thermometer, I still do the grannies’ jam trick with saucers: when you think the mix looks right spoon a blob onto a cold plate, return to the fridge for a minute to cool properly, then push a line through the syrup with your finger. If the surface crinkles, the marmalade is done. If not, boil a midge’s longer, and try with the next plate...

The marmalade will be cloudy, because we included the pith. If this is upsetting to you, omit the pith. Don’t leave out the bits of skin though. That’s just wrong. I have seen recipes with whisky thrown in at the end; this seems unnecessary to me. Try it if you want, but I’d rather drink the wee dram to perk me up for potting!

When ready, remove from the heat and leave to cool slightly before filling your jars – still hot from the oven. Fill right to the top with your mix. It should look like proper marmalade already! Don’t be tempted though, to stick your finger in and have a lick! Ouch! Sugar burns are amongst the very worst. Screw or clamp the lids on and turn upside-down to sterilise completely. Put a little label on to remind yourself when you made it – you’ll probably be eating this stuff for years!

And don’t forget to make sponge pudding! Yum... And custard! Mix half-and-half with golden syrup so the Victoria sponge’s lava cascade is not too bitter. Mmmm... I might make that next...

1 kilo of oranges makes this many jars of marmalade. Mum know's best!

What she said. ↓

* Golly! Marmalade/bitter orange jam is nice!