Tuesday, April 27, 2010

The April 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Esther of The Lilac Kitchen. She challenged everyone to make a traditional British pudding using, if possible, a very traditional British ingredient: suet.

First things first - what is suet? It is the hard but flaky fat found on the inside of a cow or sheep around the kidneys and that area of the body.

Okay, suet is an ingredient that is just tooooo daring for me! I’m sorry, but how a person could seek out this ingredient, bake with it, and knowingly eat it is more than I can comprehend. Needless to say, Smart Balance was my healthy vegan substitute.

Another thing I don’t understand is why one would boil or steam a cake for hours when one could bake it in the oven in 20 minutes. But such was the challenge and I made a version of Spotted Dick, a boiled pudding, using chocolate chips instead of currants.

I made a single serving recipe, which may be the reason my batter was rather wet. But I was able to dust it with a little flour and roll it easily in parchment paper.


I didn’t have a traditional pudding cloth (why would I?) to wrap and boil the pudding in, so I wrapped it loosely in a double layer of foil.


I placed it in a pot of gently boiling water and let it cook for about an hour.


I unrolled it, let it cool, then cut it in two. The cake was firm with a moist crumb.

Yum, fresh strawberries to enjoy with my pudding.

Other than a slightly boiled flavor, it was a good dessert - 3 out of 5 stars.

16 comments:

Andrea said...

I agree with you 100% about eating suet. Yuck. You were definitely brave to tackle this challenge — and the results look tasty. I've never had or made a boiled pudding so I have no idea what's in one, but now I'm curious!

Gina said...

Boiling a cake...very interesting! I'm glad to see you opted to not use the suet...blech.

Anonymous said...

Would you be willing to share your single serving recipe with us?

Thanks!

Unknown said...

i honestly know people who have sought out places to buy lard in their communities... and made cake with it :P

were i very very poor (and a meat eater) i may be tempted to save my grease and cook with it, but i'm just not that hard-up, and wasn't raised to appreciate beef tallow/suet/lard. poor me :P

Marja @ StuckInYourBeard said...

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Jes said...

I was wondering how vegan folks would veganize suet! The cake looks lovely, especially as a single serving!

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Jackie said...

As a child I ate a lot of suet meals from dumplings to steak and kidney pud when we made our bi-annual trips to England. At the time they seemed great but nowadays being Vegan the sight of suet makes my tummy turn.

Well done with your vegan version of Spotted Dick. With our electricity having gone up around 60% recently I doubt I will be trying it though LOL.

miss v said...

well, i'm glad you opted to forgo the suet! i thought that stuff was only for bird feeders!

the fresh strawberries looks perfectly complimentary - awesome job!

Susan G said...

Oh, cheese, how I miss thee!

Yvonne said...

Very interesting recipe. Healthy and it tastes very good.. That was a new taste experience. Thanks for sharing