MMMMM----- Recipe via Meal-Master (tm) v8.06

Title: Summer Pudding
Categories: British, Puddings
Yield: 1 Batch

150 g Caster sugar
225 g Black currants or
- blackberries
225 g Ripe red plums; stoned
1 Lemon rind strip
225 g Strawberries; hulled
225 g Raspberries; hulled
10 sl Bread; day-old

Add other fruits such as red currants, bilberries, etc, but keep the
total fruit at about 1 kg (2.2 lb) in weight

Bread should be day old and with all the crusts removed. Fresh bread
will break up into mush.

Gently heat the sugar in about 60 ml water. Stir until it's
dissolved. Add the blackberries or red currants and the lemon rind
and poach until tender. Add remaining fruit (cut plums in half) and
cook for 2 minutes more. Remove the lemon rind.

Take a basin, 1.25 l (1 qt). Cut a circle from the bread which will
fit the base of your basin. Line the base and sides of the basin
leaving no gaps at all. Pour the fruit into the basin, reserving
about 4 tb juice. Top the basin with more bread slices. Cover with a
saucer or small plate which fits exactly inside the basin. Pop a
weight on the saucer to press the pudding down. Leave overnight in a
cool, dry place. Turn out carefully onto a serving dish. Use the
juice you set aside to drizzle over any odd spots of bread that has
not soaked through with syrup.

This pudding will freeze for up to 3 months. Thaw overnight.

Serve with whipped cream or plain, unflavored, yogurt.

This dessert will astound your guests as the delicious fruit is
revealed when cut at the table. A little bit of classic cooking from
Ron's Plaice in Blackpool.

A little bit about the dish:

Royal Leamington Spa, and Bath, are two "Spa towns" built during the
Roman occupation of Britain which started around 55 BC and ended
around 407 AD. The Romans tapped into hot or mineral springs and
would use them like a club for discussing business and gossip. During
the Regency period the spas were renovated and became, once again,
fashionable as places of benefit for those suffering from "cramps and
lethargy". Summer Pudding was originally called "Hydropathic Pudding"
and it was invented for the spa visitors as it contained "neither
pastry or cream"--forbidden foods at the spas.

The recipe given here follows the original in using water to cook the
fruits. I much prefer to substitute port, which gives it a very
"adult" bite.

Recipe by Ron Curtis

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