Daring Bakers - Traditional British Pudding - Steak and Kidney 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.


Unfortunately, I could not get a hold of suet, so I used lard instead. I found it rather unpleasant to work with, as the smell and texture were rather off-putting. I decided for a change to make a savoury dish, and chose the recipe for steak and kidney pudding provided with the challenge.


Because of the warmth in my kitchen, I found it difficult to pick up the rolled pastry, so I ended up half moulding it free-form into my pudding basin. I think this made the pastry a little thick to cook to perfection, as I ended up with a few under-cooked patches inside my pudding, despite steaming it for 3 hours.


When I turned out the pudding, it collapsed a little on one side, so it was not as aesthetically pleasing as it might have been.


For some reason, my meat turned out greyish, a little like a pork pie:



Despite the obvious defects, I found the steak and kidney pudding to be rather tasty. Unfortunately, perhaps because of its unloveable appearance, it was not popular at work, and I ended up turfing quite a bit of it.


I have successfully made a lovely steak and kidney pudding using a similar recipe once before. On that occasion, I use tallow (Supafry) in the pastry, and I wonder whether that fact, and that I steamed it for 5 hours instead of 3, the main differences this time. However, as I am unlikely to be making suet puddings on a regular basis, it won't be an issue that I will be investigating.


Thanks to Esther for being our host this month. To see what the other Daring Bakers made with their suet pastry, check out the Daring Kitchen blogroll.