Traditional British Pudding

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. I did not use suet as it is an animal product. I used a steamed chocolate pudding recipe from www.puddingclub.com. I made four baby puddings instead of one larger one. They weren't great plain but they were pretty great topped with some french vanilla ice cream and some chocolate sauce. The strawberries didn't hurt either. here is the converted recipe:

Steamed Chocolate Pudding

1/2 C Butter

1/2 C Castor (Powdered)Sugar

1/2 Self Rising Flour

2 Tbs Cocoa

2 Eggs

1/4 C Chocolate Chips

Cream the butter & sugar together until light and fluffy. Sift the flour and sugar together and add a little at a time along with the egg. Stir in half the chocolate chips. Place the remaining chocolate chips on the base of your greased (1.1 litre) pudding bowl. Add the dough. Steam for 1 1/2 hours. Turn out and serve with chocolate sauce, custard, or extra thick (whatever that is!).

See steaming method below...

Here are my ramekins wrapped in aluminum foil and secured with rubber bands. I steamed them in a large pot with a steamer basket but you could easily use a crock pot. I used tongs to remove them when they were done as they were very hot. I cooked them for the full hour and a half even though they were smaller.