Steamed Pudding

I got a slow cooker and have been making the usual casseroles and stews but fancied doing some baking! I tried a few recipes and found this one good, especially as the pudding bowl size was actually the same as mine.

Instead of using a traditional steamer I put mine in a slow cooker half full of warm water overnight (7 hours) on low. It probably could have been taken out sooner but this turned out well for me. I found in my previous attempts a real difficulty in knowing when it was ready. I expected it to be dry like a sponge but as long as it's not liquid, it 'sets' when it cools.

I also used light brown sugar which gave it a lovely caramel taste. Perfect warm with custard, yum.

Parkin update

Well my update isn't as good as I had hoped. It did become a lot more treacle-y but was still dry enough to need to eat it with custard. I'm not sure what went wrong. I followed the instructions, but all the other descriptions made it sound more moist. Hmm, I think I'll chalk that one up to experience.

Parkin

Parkin is... well I'm not actually sure, which is exactly why I decided to make it. I came across the recipe, and there was no picture; I was intrigued. Some (admittedly lax) research found that this is a traditional northern England, especially Yorkshire, recipe, with the principal ingredients being treacle, oats and ginger. It is traditionally eaten on bonfire night but I didn't know that then, and as we don't really celebrate it over here in Ireland, I suppose I can be forgiven for making it a few weeks early.

I set out not really knowing what it was supposed to look/be like and to be honest when finished the appearance wasn't very encouraging:



Having popped it in the oven I started cleaning up, which was not mean feat. I used my wee trick of dipping the spoon in hot water so the treacle would slide off it easily, but unfortunately the recipe specified it as a weight and not a number of spoonfulls. This meant I managed to get treacle not only on my measuring scales (bowl and base) but the worktop, the book (thankfully the cover wipes clean), my elbow, the kettle (which I didn't use) and four spoons! By this time the parkin was ready... I think. Here's how it turned out:



Traditionally you leave parkin in a tin for at least a week before you eat it, but purely for the purposes of research (it smelt too good) I decided to try a bit. To be honest I was a bit disappointed, it was quite dry and not particularly ginger. The lumpy top was typical of a fruit cake with too little 'wet' mixture, but I wasn't sure if this was the cake here. However Delia Smith advises that this will solve itself by leaving it the requisite amount of time.

I'll have to update you all about it then!

Gingerbread

I made one of my favourite things today – gingerbread. Not only is it really yummy but cutting the shapes and decorating them is fun too.

This is a slightly odd biscuit/cookie since it is made differently in every country. Traditionally in northern Europe it’s a softer biscuit, and further south it’s a more like a ginger snap. In the 1600’s Nuremberg’s (in Germany) Lebkuchen was so good it was used as currency to pay the city’s taxes!
While gingerbread men (and women) are commonly made, a popular use around Christmas time is making gingerbread houses. Inspiring the fairy tale Hansel and Gretel, there are some amazing creations. Here’s my favourite; I love that the decorations is almost all icing. The ‘snow’ on the roof is particularly good.

It’s from the The Gingerbread Book, Ed. Allen D. Bragdon, New York: Arco Publishing, 1984. I actually intended to make one myself for the first time last Christmas, but was too busy. I’m definitely doing this year though.

My recipe is another school book source. It makes biscuits that are quite soft, but can be made crispy by leaving them in the oven for another few minutes.

350g Plain flour
110g Margarine
175g Demerara sugar
4 tbsp Golden Syrup
1 Lightly beaten egg
1 tsp Bicarbonate of Soda
1 tsp Ginger
1 tsp Cinnamon

1) Preheat the oven to 190 C and grease two baking trays
2) Mix flour, bicarbonate of soda, ginger and cinnamon
3) Rub in the margarine, or mix in a food processor until it has the consistency of breadcrumbs
4) Stir in the sugar
5) Beat the golden syrup into the egg. If you dip the spoon into hot water, it’ll come off the spoon really easily.
6) Add this to the dry mixture and knead into a dough. It’ll seem too dry but will come together.
Normal dough on the left, treacle on the right

7) Roll out and cut out shapes.

8) Bake for around 12-15 minutes.

There’s a lot of ways to vary this recipe to suit your tastes.
Here I made half with the normal golden syrup, and half with treacle to see what would happen. What came out was a stronger molasses flavour and less gingery. Personally I prefer the original version, but would definitely make these again.

The recipe above is the basic one, but I normally add another teaspoon of ginger as I like the strong taste.

Changing the type of sugar also alters the outcome. I used Demerara, which gives quite a coarse texture and lets the ginger come through. Using dark brown sugar will give a finer texture, but might overwhelm the ginger flavour. It really depends what you like.

Here's my crowd shot

I just did a few quick decorations with chocolate and sugarpaste, but the only limit is your imagination :) ‘Hair’ can be chocolate sprinkles, desiccated coconut, chocolate or raisins.

I made a few ‘old school’ ones.

And my brother's inspiration 'Ninjabread'