When you have Lemons

RECIPE

“When life serves you Lemons, make Lemonade,” they say. Which is fine in the summer, but a completely useless piece of advice on a late autumn day with the weather closing in quicker that the nights.

Sussex Pond Pudding is the answer. Simply one of the best steamed suet puddings, and a little more grown than spotted-dick, or jam roly poly, on account of the whole lemon in the middle. Sooo sophisticated.

There’s a fabulous sauce that rolls out of the otherwise fairly plain suet pastry – it’s lemon, sugar and butter that forms the most gloriously sharp caramel. But be sure to cut it carefully, everyone will want a slice, with their fair share of lemon. As for the pips – some lemons have them, others don’t, there’s just no way of knowing – you’ll just have to wait and see what life has dealt you.

Sussex Pond Pudding, Serves 4-6

175g self raising flour

70g suet - fresh grated beef suet or something like Atora

A dash of milk

70g cold diced butter

70g caster sugar

1 whole lemon

Mix together the flour, suet, a big pinch of salt, and the dash of milk. You will need sufficient milk to form a dough, don’t make it too wet though.

Smear a little butter on the inside of a pudding basin, one that takes about 2 pints is ideal. Then throw a little caster sugar in and swirl it around to stick to the butter. Next get three quarters of the dough into the basin; typically food-writers will instruct you to roll it out, but I find that spooning it in, then persuading it up the sides to form a suet bowl is quite sufficient. Put half the butter, and half the sugar into the suet lined bowl. Roll the lemon back and forth on the worktop, leaning rather heavily on it, to bruise and loosen the juice inside. Now prick the lemon all over – many times – with a skewer or the tip of a sharp pointy knife. Twist the blade a little to open up the holes. Put the lemon in the basin, add the remaining butter and sugar and then finish the assembly with the remaining dough mix.

Cover the pudding with the basin lid (some have them) or a buttered sheet of tin-foil with a box-pleat folded into it (the pudding will expand a little). Conventional wisdom would now have you tie the top in place with a piece of string and knit a little handle from the tail ends. All nonsense. You need only secure the foil lid in place with several run-arounds the outside with a roll of sellotape or masking tape.

The pudding will need to steam for three or four hours. Maintain a gentle panful of steam by using a low heat and a tight fitting lid. Check it occasionally, topping up as necessary.

To serve remove it with oven gloves, cut the foil lid off, and turn it out onto a plate. Then cut into fair sized portions. Custard is the correct accompaniment, and all the better made with custard powder for this.