Three Chimneys Hot Marmalade Pudding

Although the start of winter was delayed here, it has now hit with a vengeance.  It is cold and wet and blustery - the kind of weather where you shiver in bed and can't get to sleep, forcing you to get up and grab another blanket out of the cupboard.

Despite hating winter weather, I love winter food - stews, roasts, steamed puddings, crumbles and the like. Accordingly, I undertook the arduous task of digging out my pudding steamer on the weekend to make a steamed pudding that I have wanted to make for ages - the Three Chimneys Hot Marmalade Pudding.  I saw this recipe in The Guardian yonks ago, and even bought The Three Chimneys cookbook on the back of it - then promptly put the book on the shelf and did nothing with it.  The Three Chimneys is a celebrated restaurant on the Isle of Skye, off the Scottish coast, but being half a world a way, I would never have heard of it except for my devoted readership of the food section of The Guardian.  The cookbook is rather nice, as it contains stories about life at the restaurant and on the Isle of Skye, with lots of beautiful scenic shots of that part of the world.

On Saturday, I bit the bullet, dragged out the Three Chimneys cookbook, and bought a loaf of bread especially to make this pudding.  Unfortunately, I wasn't thinking clearly when I bought the bread and I bought whole grain instead of plain old wholemeal bread, but in the end it didn't matter much - I think the seeds added a bit of pleasing texture to the pudding.
 

I served this pudding initially as it was meant to be - hot out of the steamer with icecream.  However, the way that I loved this pudding was a large chunk cut off from the refrigerated pudding the next day.  Now that was superb - it really brought out the rich marmalade flavour of the pudding.  You can, however, serve it as you wish.  I think this pudding would be wonderful on a cold, blustery day served warm with lashings of warm custard.  Excuse me while I go and cut myself another slice ...