Good Old-Fashioned Steamed Pudding of Spotted Dick

Spotted Dick is a very old-fashioned steamed pudding that has been renamed as Spotted Richard at my local restaurant for fear of embarrassment I guess, for customers ordering! This is pure comfort food at its best on a cold Autumn/Winter evening, served with lashings of hot steamy custard. I still like my pudding steamed on top of the stove the old-fashioned way, which delivers a very moist fruit sponge pudding. The only thing I have changed is that I use vegetable suet instead of beef suet these days. Of course this is a treat that you can have on special occasions for pudding, I wouldn’t like to make a guess on how many calories are in a serving – but then who’s counting when it’s a sheer treat?

Good Old-Fashioned Steamed Pudding of Spotted Dick

Serves 6 –8

Ingredients
225g (8 oz) self-raising flour
Pinch of salt
110g (4 oz) suet * beef or vegetable *
25g (1 oz) caster sugar
175g (6 oz) currants
150ml (¼ pint) milk

Method

You will need a 1.2 litre (2 pint) pudding basin, greased with a little butter, greaseproof paper and foil to cover the top of the basin and a little string to secure the paper and foil.

Place a steamer on to boil and then lower to a simmer in readiness for cooking the pudding.

In a mixing bowl sieve the flour and salt together then add the suet, sugar and currants. Add enough milk to make the mixture into a dropping consistency (you may not require all the milk from the list of ingredients), and mix until all combined. Spoon the mixture into the prepared pudding basin and with a spoon level the top.

Make a circle large enough to fold a pleat in the middle to place on top of the pudding, leaving enough to come down the sides, do the same with the foil too. After placing the greaseproof paper and foil on top of the pudding basin, tie string around the top half of the basin and secure tightly, then take the string over the top of the pudding tying down to make a handle to lift the pudding out.

Place the pudding into the steamer and steam for 2 hours, do not let the steamer boil dry and replenish the water as necessary.

Serve while hot with lashing of custard or cream.