Sunday, 5 February 2012

Spotted Dick

Today I made Spotted Dick and custard for Sunday lunch. It went down well!
As my first contribution to the Helm Family Cookbook, proposed by my brother Mike, I post the recipe below.
It is not your classic school dinner pudding, stodgy steamed suet, but rather a lighter spongy lemony version. Different.


One day soon I'll do the 'original'.
There is of course a website: http://spotteddick.net/
And a Wikipedia entry
Heinz do a tinned version (which isn't bad at all!)
And of course someone has produced a T-shirt


Serves 6 (or 8 who will be wishing for more)
Ingredients:
175 g butter, softened, plus a little extra for greasing the basin
175 g caster sugar
1 lemon, grated zest, and juice.
1 orange, grated zest
3 eggs, beaten
200 g self-raising flour
50 cc milk
80 g sultanas and/or currants (for adults - soak them overnight  in calvados or some such spirit)
Procedure
1. Grease a 1.2 litre pudding basin with butter.
2. In a mixing bowl, cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.
3. Add the lemon and orange zest, followed by the lemon juice, and whisk in the beaten egg, a little at a time.
4. Sift in the flour and gently whisk the mixture together.
5. Add just enough milk for the mixture to drop easily from a spoon.
6. Fold in the sultanas and currants.
7. Spoon the mixture into the prepared pudding basin and firstly cover with a disc of greaseproof paper, then with a  piece of foil, tied under the rim of the basin with string.
8. To steam the pudding, place a small saucer into the base of a large pan. Place the basin onto the saucer and fill the pan with boiling water two-thirds up the side of the basin.
9. Cover and steam for 1 hour and 30 minutes to 2 hours. Continue to top up the water to the two-thirds mark, as the water will evaporate. Take care not let the water dry out.

February classical composers anniversaries

Late again, but here are February's anniversaries:

February
Great Classical Composer
Anniversaries

2/02/1594 Palestrina died
3/02/1809 Mendelssohn born
7/02/1652 Allegri died

13/02/1883 Wagner died
15/02/1857 Glinka died
17/2/1653 Corelli born
20/2/1961 P.Grainger died

23/2/1934 Elgar died
23/2/1685 Handel born
27/2/1887 Borodin died
29/2/1792 Rossini born

Delius Anniversary

29th January was the 150th birthday of the english composer Frederick Delius (1862 - 1934).

Not one of my favourite composers. However as it is his anniversary I have done his portrait and added a profile to my 52composers.com website.
He was born 'Fritz' a name which he used until he was 40, when he changed it to Frederick.
He spent most of his adult life abroad in America, Germany, Norway and mainly France.