Thursday 9 August 2012

Caramel, Ginger and Apricot Sponge Pudding


From Quiet Food, The Buddhist Institute of South Africa, Double Storey, 2006.

I find recipes from this book rather annoying in their measurements. They use mls for non-liquid ingredients, although not always. In one recipe, for example, they use mls for butter and then g for butter. Nevertheless, once I got my guide for equivalence out it was not that bad.



Hot sweet desserts are just right for cold winter nights and this one looked as though it would fit the bill. Milk (250 ml) was combined with a tablespoon of butter and a tablespoon of apricot jam and heated so that the ingredients were all blended. It was then taken off the heat and left to cool.



An egg was beaten with three-quarters of a cup of sugar until it was fluffy. The recipe suggested beating over a bowl of hot water, but I found this awkward to achieve and abandoned the hot water. When the beating was done a tablespoon of white vinegar was stirred in.



I sifted a cup of flour with a teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda then added the milk mixture. When they were well mixed I folded in the egg mix. At this stage there was a choice of adding preserved ginger, dried apricots or glacé fruit. One didn’t seem enough for me so I added half a cup of chopped ginger and a cup of chopped apricots. This was all placed in a greased casserole and baked at 170°C for about an hour.

A sauce was made by boiling a cup of cream, half a cup of milk, half a cup of sugar and 50 g butter for about 5 minutes. When the cake came out of the oven it was pricked all over with a skewer and the sauce was poured on a little at a time until it was all absorbed.

This was called ‘Comforting Caramel’ in the recipe book and it certainly fitted that name. It was gooey and richly sweet with little bites of ginger and the chewier apricot pieces. The sponge was quite light in the upper half but tended to be heavy towards the bottom—possibly the result of me adding two instead of one of the extra ingredients.

Taste: ✔✔✔
Ease of cooking: ✔✔✔

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