Summer Plum Pudding Recipes

Steps:

• Sift together the flour, salt, baking soda and spices. Mix together the rest of the ingredients, except the egg whites, adding just the yolks. Whip the egg whites until stiff and fold into the batter. Grease a pudding mold dredged with sugar and pour in batter. Cover the mold with its lid or cover tightly with foil. Steam for 3 to 4 hours, depending on the size of your mold. Serve hot with hard sauce. If you are not serving the pudding immediately, store in the refrigerator soaking in 1 ounce of brandy. Add 1 ounce each week.
• Serve with warmed Hard Sauce.
• Cream the butter in an electric mixer until pale in color. Add the sugar and mix well. Add the flavorings and mix in then adjust, to taste.

Steps:

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
• In a 2 quart baking dish, stir together plums, 1 cup sugar, water, tapioca and cinnamon. Bake in preheated oven for 25 minutes. (You can also cook the plum mixture in the microwave for 15 minutes.)
• Raise oven temperature to 450 degrees F (230 degrees C).
• In a medium bowl, stir together baking mix, 3 tablespoons sugar, milk and melted margarine to form a biscuit dough. Drop dough by spoonfuls onto plum mixture. Bake in preheated oven 10 minutes, until golden brown. Let cool slightly before serving.

Steps:

• Quarter each plum half and place all the plums in a heavy saucepan. Add the sugar, cinnamon, water and lemon juice. Bring to a simmer and cook, stirring, about five minutes, until the sugar has completely dissolved, the mixture is very juicy and the plums are tender but still hold their shape. Remove from the heat.
• Trim the crusts from the bread and line the bottom and sides of a 6-cup bowl with the slices, overlapping them slightly so there are no gaps.
• Spoon about one-third cup of the juice from the plums into a small bowl, cover and refrigerate. Fill the bread-lined bowl with the remaining plums and their juice. Cover the top with a layer of bread, then place a sheet of plastic wrap directly on the bread, allowing the plastic to extend over the sides of the bowl.
• Select plate, pie pan or cake pan that can be put directly on top of pudding, fitting inside bowl. Place it on pudding and weight it down with heavy can, rock or some other object. Refrigerate the pudding overnight.
• To serve, run knife or thin spatula around inside of bowl and invert pudding onto a dish with a rim to catch excess juices. Use the reserved plum juice to paint any areas of the bread that did not become soaked with juice from the pudding and are still whitish. Serve with whipped cream.

Steps:

• Heat oven to 180C/160C fan/gas 4. Toss the plums, cinnamon, lemon zest and brandy, if using, together in a bowl, then leave to macerate while you make the batter.
• Cream the butter and sugar with an electric whisk until pale and fluffy, add the eggs one at a time, then tip in the flour and ground almonds. Mix until completely combined.
• Tip the fruit into a buttered shallow baking dish, spoon over the cake batter, then sprinkle over the flaked almonds. Bake for 35-40 mins until browned and cooked through. Test if the pudding is ready by inserting a skewer. If it comes out clean, the pudding is ready; if there is some batter on the skewer, then give it a few mins more. Remove from the oven and serve warm with clotted cream.

Steps:

• Bring out the juices: Wash fruit and gently dry on kitchen paper - keep strawberries separate. Put sugar and 3 tbsp water into a large pan. Gently heat until sugar dissolves - stir a few times. Bring to a boil for 1 min, then tip in the fruit (not strawberries). Cook for 3 mins over a low heat, stirring 2-3 times. The fruit will be softened, mostly intact and surrounded by dark red juice. Put a sieve over a bowl and tip in the fruit and juice.
• Line the bowl with cling film and prepare the bread: Line the 1.25-litre basin with cling film as this will help you to turn out the pudding. Overlap two pieces of cling film in the middle of the bowl as it's easier than trying to get one sheet to stick to all of the curves. Let the edges overhang by about 15cm. 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.
• Build the pud: Dip the whole piece of bread into the juice for a few secs just to coat. Push this into the bottom of the basin. Now dip the wonky rectangular pieces one at a time and press around the basin'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, adding the strawberries here and there as you go.
• Let flavours mingle then serve: Dip the bread triangles in juice and place on top - trim off overhang with scissors. Keep leftover juice for later. Bring cling film up and loosely seal. Put a side plate on top and weight down with cans. Chill for 6 hrs or overnight. To serve, open out cling film then put a serving plate upside-down on top and flip over. serve with leftover juice, any extra berries and cream.

Steps:

• Sift soda, salt and spice into the flour, rub in the suet and add raisins.
• Mix the milk and molasses, stir into the dry mixture.
• Butter a pudding mold.
• Turn mixture into mold.
• Steam for 3 hours.
• Remove from mold to serving plate.
• Cover with a clean tea towel.
• Keep pudding in insect-free, cool place for 3 months. (I just kept it covered in the 'fridge.).
• Pour brandy over pudding periodically, if desired.
• Hard Sauce.
• Rub the butter to a cream in a warm bowl, add sugar gradually then the flavoring.
• Pack smoothly in a small dish.
• Keep on ice until very hard.