Not only is this absolutely delicious, and syn free, it’s also incredibly easy – excellent for dinner parties, or for a Wednesday if you’re in a grumpy mood and you need cheering up.
Halve the strawberries, place in a shallow dish, sprinkle a tablespoon or two of Splenda over the top and then drizzle balsamic vinegar over the fruit. Cover and leave at room temperature for about an hour for the strawberries to absorb the vinegar. When you are ready to serve, drain the strawberries of excess vinegar, add a couple of twists of freshly ground black pepper, transfer into a glass and top with very low fat yoghurt.
Take one strawberry Mullerlight, stick it in the freezer, get peckish, prize frozen yoghurt out of the pot, add to bowl of fresh rasberries, spend 30 happy minutes chipping away to break up the lovely yoghurtyness – or remember to a) only leave the pot in the freezer for a few hours or b) give it time to soften in the fridge.
Or of course, I could go and get myself an ice-cream maker like I’ve been promising myself for ages.
I’m still trying to perfect a decent alternative to traditional crumble topping – surprisingly enough, flour, brown sugar and butter is not a great combination for someone who wants to lose a couple of inches here and there.
Today’s version was porridge oats, a little flour, Splenda, cinnamon, all spice and a teaspoon of golden syrup (a little goes a long way, as long as you can resist dipping the spoon back in the jar and licking it clean). It was ok, but it felt a little under done – maybe it needs to be toasted a little before going on the fruit.
The real success of this pudding however was the sauce – using low-fat yoghurt and semi skimmed milk instead of full fat milk, or cream works surprisingly well, add a little cornflour and you get a lovely custardy consistency. I’ll certainly be making that again.
Ok, hands up who spotted the L.P. Hartley allusion? You did? You clever thing, you! Yes, I’m not just talking about food from beyond the borders of this Sceptered Isle, but from a different time. Have a look at these two books.
Chinese Cooking by Frank Oliver
Indian Cooking by Savitri Chowdhary
They have a certain style to them don’t they? The exotic colouring, the retro lettering, the fact that they are in fact the same book…
Chinese & Indian Cooking Book
Two cookery books for the price of one, bargain! My Mum took this pair to university with her, and I have a sneaky suspicion that after she wrote her name and address inside both front covers (very droll mum, very droll) it may have sat on the shelf looking all exotic until I nabbed it from her a few years back.
Now I have to admit, the Indian half of this book has had a lot more attention from me than the chinese side (although in my defence, I do live 10 minutes away from the oldest Chinatown in Europe) and I’d never really given much thought to Chinese puddings – after all, we all know what they are don’t we? Banana fritters in golden syrup, lychees, ice cream and biscuits that vaguely resemble Farleys Rusks.
But I thought I should have a look and see what oriental desserts we were being encouraged to eat back in 1968, long before the Chinese chippy became a staple of every row of shops, and I came across 9 recipes for a thing called tea. ‘So what?’ I hear you say, ‘it’s no big surprise to us that the Chinese drink a lot of tea’, but ahh, no, this isn’t ‘tea’ tea at all, this tea is apparently a sort of hot sweet custard-style dessert.
There’s recipes for Almond Tea, Walnut and Date Tea, Orange Tea, Orange and Grape Tea, Lotus Seed Tea, Walnut Tea, Lotus Seed Tea (no that’s not a typo, it really is in there twice for some reason), Tangerine Tea and Orange and Pineapple Tea. They all have slightly different methods, so it will be interesting to see how they turn out. There’s also a recipe for Almond Biscuits, which sound like a rather nice counterpoint to all that goo.
On the Indian side of the book, things are a little more familiar, with lots of recipes for halva, sweetmeats and rice puddings, but again here there is a recipe for a sweet condensed milk called Rabarhi, and a couple of dishes that use Vermicelli (or Savia) which are new to me and look rather yummy. So the next time I get an urge for a curry (which is a couple of times a month), I think I’ll be adding some pudding to the menu too.
Oh you didn’t know that gelatine was made from beef bones? Sorry about that, hope it doesn’t put you off the rest of this post, because the rest is really yummy.
I’ve just got some new individual pudding moulds, and they’ve already been sitting on a shelf for too long without being used, so I thought I’d try out a couple of Slimming World recipes, one for Orange Creme Caramel (3 syns) and one for Very Berry Jelly (1 syn).
I made 2 of each and because a) I wasn’t sure whether the proportions for the Creme Caramel would set it properly and b) I’m really impatient, I put one of each in the fridge and one in the freezer. An hour and a bit later I get the freezer ones out to see how they’re going, and voila, set (or at least solid).
The orange creme caramel was possibly more frozen than set, and the caramel had to be chipped of the bottom of the mould, but it was tasty enough. It’ll be interesting to see how the fridge version turns out in the morning.
The fruit jelly was more successful, although I think I may opt to have the fruit less densely packed next time. One interesting thing though, the allspice and cinnamon that was mixed with the warm jelly mix had all sunk to the bottom of the mould by the time I got it out of the freezer, so when it was popped out onto the plate it almost looked like it had been dusted.
I think I might play around with the flavours a bit though. Adding rosemary or cardamon to the orange might be a nice combination, and I’m wondering what might happen if I added a spash or port to the fruit jelly (aside from pushing they syn count up of course). Watch this space.
orange creme caramel from the fridge
Ingredients for orange creme caramel
caramel in the base of the pudding mould
orange creme caramel ready for the fridge
Orange Creme Caramel turned out onto a plate
Ingredients for Very Berry Jelly
very berry jelly ready for fridge
Very Berry Jelly turned out onto a plate
Very Berry Jelly with a spoonful taken out
Update 2/8/2010:
I’ve just had the other creme caramel for breakfast (that’s not odd at all, is it) and actually, it was pretty good. The caramel had remained soft and mixed with the orange to create the sort of sauce that I was hoping I’d get last night (I suspect the excess of sauce is down to me leaving it a few seconds too long in the bowl of warm water this morning to get it out of the pudding mould). It’s nice to know that the amount of gelatine used was about right though – I guess I’ll just have to make sure that I plan ahead when I want some more of this, and learn some patience.
So, I’ve got a confession to make – I’m a blogger on a diet. I’m working hard at being the incredible shrinking woman, and before too long I hope to be a mere shadow of my former self, a wee slip of a girl. In short, I’ve lost just under a stone so far, and I’ve got just over a stone to go. I’m sure you can already guess what my downfall has been – I can walk past bags of crisps all day long without even a pang of temptation, but going without pudding, or cake? That’s a big ask.
Which leaves me with a problem, clearly, because while a lot of diet puddings are so damn unsatisfying, a lot of satisfying puddings are far from waistband friendly (and yes, I am aware I ate half of a huge bread and butter pudding yesterday, it was needed to soak up the remnants of the previous nights refreshments). But there are some bearable options out there, that can keep the urge to empty Greggs of all their custard slices at bay. And I see it as my duty as a pudding blogger to try them out for you, give you a verdict and (if it’s worthwhile) a recipe.
I’m following the Slimming World eating plan (most of the time), so I’ll be listing Syn values where I can. If you’re counting calories, or doing Weight Watchers or Atkins or whatever, you’ll have to make your own approximations for now I’m afraid.
Don’t worry though, at least once a week I’m going to be posting a properly indulgent pudding – just don’t tell my scales eh?
You have no idea how much I love bread and butter pudding. Not only is it a pudding, but it’s made with bread, and butter – what could possibly be better than that? I’ve made several different versions over the years, but we’ll start with the classic version that we all remember from school.
Ingredients:
Ingredients for Bread and Butter Pudding
Bread
Butter
Sugar
Eggs
Milk
Cinnamon
Sultanas
Amounts:
I tend to cook by approximation, and how much you need here depends on how much you want to eat, and how big your dish is. This is old-fashioned comfort food cooking, so go with what works for you.
In general, if you’re using a standard size loaf then 2 slices of bread per person is a good portion size. For a 4 person pudding, 8 slices of bread, 50g of sugar, 50g of fruit, 3/4 pint of milk and 2 eggs should be about right. Use as much butter as you need to butter the bread and the dish and as much cinnamon as you fancy.
Now the eagle-eyed amongst you may have noticed that I am using fruit bread rather than plain white bread. This isn’t because I’m being all fancy, it’s because the loaf was reduced to 26p at the end of the day. Bread and butter pudding is by its very nature a budget pud, and one best made with slightly stale bread, so it feels kinda right to use this particular loaf. Good old white bread works just as well though.
Instructions:
First butter your bread, generously, then cut off the crusts (try to trim as little as possible, you don’t want to be throwing away good bread and butter) and cut the slices into triangles.
Layer the buttered bread in a buttered dish along with the sultanas, and most of the cinnamon and sugar (leave some aside for the top).
bread, butter, sultanas, sugar, cinnamon
Beat the eggs until smooth and add to the milk, which should be warming in a pan. Stir together for a minute or two over a gentle heat and then pour evenly over the bread and fruit. Cover the dish and leave for half an hour or so to allow the bread to absorb some of the milk mix.
Bread and Butter Pudding, ready for the oven
After half an hour, sprinkle the top of the pudding with the remaining sugar and cinnamon, and bake for about 1 – 1 1/4 hours at about 150C/300F, increasing the temperature to about 180C for the last 15 minutes to brown the top of the pudding.
bread and butter pudding, fresh from the oven
Serve with custard, or icecream, or just eat it straight from the dish, like I just did.
I’ll be doing another ludicrously rich gooey version of Bread and Butter pudding soon, but in the meantime I leave you with the marvelous Posh Nosh and their own special recipe.
By all accounts, we’re about to enter an age of austerity. Cuts and cutbacks, paring life back to the bare bones. We’re all in this together they say, we all have to make sacrifices they say, it’s going to be miserable they say.
I say ‘bollocks to that, pass me the custard, I’m having seconds’
