Today, 23 April, is St George's Day. St George is the patron saint of England, and 23 April is the date of his death. It is also celebrated as Shakespeare's Day to celebrate the birth and death of William Shakespeare. Keeping with the English theme, it was Queen Elizabeth II's 86th birthday on Saturday. Putting all of these together, I thought it would be most appropriate if I made that most English of puddings to celebrate today, Queen of Puddings.
Queen of Puddings is comprised of a baked egg custard with breadcrumbs, topped with a layer of raspberry jam, then topped with fluffy meringue. It is meant to be enjoyed warm from the oven.
There are many different recipes for Queen of Puddings, but I used 1/4 of the recipe from the Great British Book of Baking. If you would like to try it, the pudding for one recipe (slightly adapted by me) is as follows:
Custard
150ml milk (I used low fat)
1 teaspoon vanilla (they used a vanilla pod for their grander scale version)
1 tablespoon butter (I used reduced fat margarine)
1 teaspoon lemon zest
1 egg yolk
1 tablespoon white sugar
25g fresh white breadcrumbs
Topping
1 tablespoon strawberry jam (I used raspberry jam)
1 egg white
25g white sugar
Preheat your oven to 180 degrees Celsius. Grease a one cup ramekin (or spray with oil, as I did).
Put the milk into a small saucepan with the vanilla, and heat until the milk is steaming (not boiling). Remove the milk from the heat and leave to stand for 15 minutes to steep in the vanilla flavour.
Put the egg yolk into a small bowl with the lemon zest and sugar, and beat until creamy. Stir in the milk, drizzling it in slowly while constantly stirring so that you don't cook the yolk. Stir in the breadcrumbs, then pour the custard into the ramekin, and leave standing for 15 minutes.
Place the ramekin into the oven and bake for ~ 30 minutes or until the custard is set. Remove the ramekin from the oven and leave it stand for at least 5 minutes. Spread the jam over the top of the custard. Beat the egg white until soft peaks form, then add the sugar and beat until stiff peaks form. Pile the meringue on top of the jam, and bake in the oven for a further 15 minutes, until the top is crunchy and golden brown. Serve warm from the oven.
Enjoy! Happy St George's Day to those in England.
10 comments:
I'm finally making it to your blog...just left a comment on your friands. I'm enjoying seeing and reading about lots of fun things you are doing. I'll have to look up St. George. I know I've learned about him before, but I need to do it again. In my mind he is a dragon killer who saved fair princesses, but I'm sure I'm mixing him up with a fairy tale and I should be more respectful of who he really is...I'll learn more right now. Your pudding is one my grandkiddies would like...thanks for sharing this post.
It's a bit chilly in Spain today, and I would love to have one of these now!!
It looks very English and very delicious!
This is one of those English desserts that I know of in general terms, but couldn't have defined specifically. It's good to see what it involves!
Good idea Cakelaw! Why wouldn't the English think of doing that, or SOMETHING for St George's day? They don't even have a national holiday. But watch out for the Jubilee celebrations in June. Everyone will be baking then, I hope.
And I forgot to say the pudding looks delicious!
I don't think I've ever tried this pudding before! it sounds lovely and I'd be tempted to do some sort of crown decoration too :P
I wish I could follow all the significant foodie dates the way you do - but at least I can catch up with them on your blog because otherwise they would pass you by. Interesting pudding - jam and custard seems like a lovely match - I imagine it would be a mess if made in a large baking dish - your individual dish looks very neat
Those look like delicious puddings for St. George's Day!
Love your photos. I have never had Queen's pudding and it looks wonderful! Happy St. George Day and Happy Belated Birthday to the Queen!
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