Cooking apples in a traditional pudding bowl
Here’s a new twist for one of granny’s old-fashioned pudding recipes. This is a delicious steamed pudding with syrupy apples toppling out of sweet dough. It makes a delicious dessert that will be popular with everyone and is not quite as unhealthy as you might imagine. It could even maybe help get children to eat some fruit. Preparation in the Granny’s day required a pudding bowl, muslin cloth, and two and a half hours of steaming time but the recipe adapts nicely for the microwave making it easy to recreate in minutes today. You can ad lib if you wish by adding raisins or blackberries to the apples and maybe adding some cinnamon or cloves, or perhaps a bit of lemon juice or orange juice to the apples. I like the pudding best when simply prepared with nothing more than the apples and some brown sugar. Cooking time will depend on your microwave so the timings below are just an indication. You’ll need to experiment to find what works best in your microwave.
Serves 4
Ingredients for Apple Dumpling
- 4 cooking apples
- 4 oz suet or lard
- 8 oz self raising flour
- 2/3 tablespoons of cold water
- 2 oz brown sugar (or more depending on your taste)
You also need a pudding bowl (a deep bowl works best), some cling film and the microwave.
Method
Lightly grease your pudding bowl to avoid sticking.
Cube the lard/suet to make it easier to work into the flour. Sieve the flour into a mixing bowl. Rub in the lard to make a dough adding a little cold water if required to soften the dough. The dough should be soft but not wet. Gather the dough into a ball and prepare for rolling by placing a sheet of cling film on your bread board. Put the dough ball on the sheet of cling film then put another sheet of cling film on top. This will let you roll out the dough without requiring additional flour and without getting your rolling pin dirty! Roll the dough out to a thickness of about 1 centimeter.
Line your pudding bowl with the dough keeping back enough to make a lid for your pudding. Peel and slice the apples. Fill the bowl about half way with apples then add about half the brown sugar. Put the remaining sliced apples in the bowl and add the rest of the sugar.
Cover with the remaining dough making sure that the sides are well sealed.
Cover loosely with cling film pierced a couple of times. Pop in the microwave. Cooking time will vary depending on the power of your microwave but cook on high for 6-8 minutes. Check that the dough is cooked through before serving.
Turn the pudding out carefully on to a serving plate – this will allow excess syrup to run to the base of the pudding.
Serve with custard, ice cream, or natural greek yoghurt.
Enjoy!
