Summer Pudding
Summer pudding is a British dessert made of sliced bread, layered in a deep bowl with fruit and fruit juice. It is left to soak overnight and turned out onto a plate.
Serves [8]
Ingredients
1¼ kilograms mixed berries and currants of your choice (frozen or a little bit overripe is fine, whatever is available)
100 grams date syrup
7 slices stale white bread
Method
Put the fruit and date syrup into a large pan. Bring to a boil simmer and stir for 3 minutes. The fruit will be softened, mostly intact and surrounded by dark red juice.
Cut the crusts off the bread. Cut 4 pieces of bread in half, a little on an angle, to give 2 lopsided rectangles per piece. Cut 2 slices into 4 triangles each and leave the final piece whole.
Dip the whole piece of bread into the juice for a few secs just to coat. Push this into the bottom of a pudding bow. Now dip the wonky rectangular pieces one at a time and press around the bowl’s sides so that they fit together neatly, alternately placing wide and narrow ends up. If you can’t quite fit the last piece of bread in it doesn’t matter, just trim into a triangle, dip in juice and slot in. Now spoon in the softened fruit.
Dip the bread triangles in juice and place on top. Keep leftover juice for later. Put a side plate on top and weight down with cans. Chill for 6 hrs or overnight. To serve, put a serving plate upside-down on top and flip the pudding over, if it doesn’t come out first time try placing the pudding bowl in a larger bowl of warm water for 30 seconds and running a knife around the edge of the pudding before turning out. Serve with leftover juice, any extra berries and cream.
Recipe provided by Mark Breen of Seasonal Kitchen.
