Traditional English Pudding (Steamed Resin) - Daring Baker's April Challenge

The Daring Baker's Challenge for April was hosted by Esther from The Lilac Kitchen. The idea was to make a British pudding using suet. Before this challenge, I used to think that puddings are like custards but England seem to own a world of puddings which are very different from custards and are more in-line with cakes.



Esther gave us a number of options: (1) savory or sweet (2) crust or steamed (sponge) type. I made a sweet sponge type resin pudding and savory mixed vegetable crust pudding. Having never tasted a British pudding before, in my opinion, sponge type puddings are like dense cakes and crust pudding are more like stuffed pies. If I end up visiting UK in near future, I would surely try them at restaurants and would have some basis to compare to:)

Being a vegetarian, I had to find a substitute for suet. After a lot of search for a good substitute, I ended up using grated frozen butter as a replacement for suet. Overall, it was easy to put together and quite interesting to make puddings by steaming for up to 3-5 hrs.

Steamed Resin Pudding
Ingredients:
7/8 cup all purpose flour
1/4 tsp salt
1.5 tsp baking powder
2/3 cup breadcrumbs
1/3 cup caster sugar
1/3 cup frozen butter
1 large egg
6-8 tbsp cold milk
resin/current: 1/2 cup
2.5 tbsp orange + lemon peel

- Sift flour, salt, baking powder in a big bowl
- Grate frozen butter
- Add breadcrumbs, sugar and butter to the bowl
- Beat egg in a bowl and add milk
- Add the egg and milk mixture to dry ingredients and make a soft batter
- Add resins and orange & lemon peel to the batter and mix
- Butter a 1 litre pudding basin ( I used a one litre steel bowl with shape similar to pudding basin)
- Transfer the batter into the pudding basin, cover first with wax paper and then with aluminium foil and secure properly using a rubberband or rope.
- Steam for 2.5 to 3 hours. For detailed instructions on how to steam puddings please refer to this video.
- Remove the pudding basin from steamer. Remove wax paper and aluminium foil.
- Place a big plate on the top of the basin and invert such that the basin is on to top of the plate. Remove the basin slowly to get pudding on to the plate
- Serve with sweet sauce to taste such as custard, caramel or sweetened fruit sauce.

Thanks Esther for a wonderful challenge!