Thursday, September 12, 2013

Microwave: Lemon Self Saucing Pudding


Over the last several years I've lived in a few different towns in New Zealand, both in the North and South island. This year it was time for another move. Due to my husband's line of work as an outdoor instructor we go where the work is. Not that I mind getting dragged along; I get to experience places I would never have otherwise.

I have travel anxiety so have never really been very adventurous.  But since being with my husband it has been an awesome experience to get out of my comfort zone and experience so many new locations, and it has helped me develop a real love for NZ nature and its diverse landscapes.

So for our next chapter in life, we have recently moved from Hanmer Springs in the South Island up to the Tongariro area in the North. We're now living in a small house with a view of these guys down the driveway.

Mountains! Volcanoes! Tongariro and Ngauruhoe. Ruapehu is there too but didn't fit in the photo.

Not too shabby.

But there are trade-offs when you live in such a remote location. At home there is no tv, no internet, no mobile phone coverage, but most scarily, the kitchen is tiny. And most devastatingly, there is no bench space.

But thanks to our lifestyle I've learnt to be very adaptable, so I'm still going to be cooking up a storm and will attempt to update this blog whenever possible. (edit: a few weeks later and we now have internet!)

So for my first recipe from this new location I thought I'd share a nostalgic recipe that I've been making since my childhood. It's a lemon self-saucing pudding, but I've never called it that, I've always lovingly referred to it as "Shlops". It just rolls off the tongue a little easier. I called it that because it's not an elegant looking dish, kinda shloppy, and when you dump it on your plate, there's no being delicate about it, it just shlops right off your serving spoon. Thankfully it makes up for it in taste and convenience, it's a delightful combination of a lemon sponge and thick sweet lemon sauce all cooked together in one dish. It's actually a microwave recipe (hence why I loved making it when I was a kid), cake ready in ten minutes...oooh yeah! But you can cook it in a standard oven too, which I have just done as I don't have any microwave cookware in the cupboard. Actually I didn't have a lot of things in the cupboard, like measuring cups. Speaking of being adaptable, I made my own:

Is there any problem that duct tape can't solve?

Anyway enough rambling, I hope you give this recipe a try it's just the right tartness for a lemon pudding and is extra delicious when served warm. I guess it serves four, but between the two of us we can polish it off in one sitting, it's too damn yum.

"Shlops" - Lemon Self-Saucing Lemon Pudding

Ingredients:

125g butter, softened
1/2 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon lemon rind
3/4 cup flour
1 and 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 cup milk
--------------------------
1 teaspoon lemon rind
1/4 cup caster sugar (regular sugar is fine too)
1 tablespoon cornflour
--------------------------
1 and 1/2  cups boiling water
1/2 cup lemon juice

Method:

Cream together the butter and sugar.
Add the eggs one at a time, beat well after each addition.
Mix in 1 tsp lemon rind, then fold in the flour and baking powder.
Add the milk and mix.
Spoon the mixture into a microwave or oven dish. (21cm round dish is ideal)
Next mix together another tsp of lemon rind with the castor sugar and cornflour.
Sprinkle this mixture evenly onto the cake mixture.
Now mix together the boiling water and lemon juice.
Spoon this liquid over the top.
Pop the dish into the oven or microwave.
In a microwave it will cook for approx 10 min on high  (though this was on my old decrepit microwave so check yours after only a few minutes! Someone commented that theirs only took 5 minutes max!).  In a standard oven it will take approx approx 35-40min at 180 Celsius.

16 comments:

  1. Wow It should be really yummmyy!! im bookmarking it :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. I tried this recipe in Soufflé dishes in the microwave. It took 4 mins on high. Next time I'll halve the measurements for the boiling water and lemon juice. It was very nice. 😊

    ReplyDelete
  3. A few blueberries or raspberries, whole, in the bottom of the dish before pouring in the batter make a whole new wonderful thing.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Great suggestion! Will give it a try next time. Thanks! :)

      Delete
  4. Thanks for the heads up. I only read your comment when I was five minutes in to the cooking time. Luckily it was only just a little over cooked. Can't imagine how dry it would have been after 10 mins!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Oh no, I'll make sure to amend the cooking time in the recipe. Microwaves cook so much faster these days, especially compared with my old bomb of a microwave!

      Delete
  5. Beautiful pud. Took 10 minutes in my old microwave too!

    ReplyDelete
  6. I can't wait to try this recipe. I made lemon pudding cake in one of the first microwaves in 1978 and have not been able to find a recipe for it since. It was heaven. This looks like it will be!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Oh that is so cool! I've been making this pudding since the early 90s, and it's still probably one of my all time favourite desserts. I hope the recipe works well for you so you can get a hit of nostalgia!

      Delete
  7. oh I forgot, what is castor sugar? and must be corn flour? thanks

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Castor sugar is just a finer grade of sugar than standard granular sugar. It's especially useful when short cooking times are involved. The smaller granules dissolve faster. Regular sugar should be fine though, I have used it myself sometimes. Otherwise if you have issues you can make your own by blitzing regular sugar in a food processor, just make sure you only process it a little bit as you don't want it to be powder sugar!
      I've never replaced the cornflour so I'm not sure if substitutes affect the recipe, but you could try something like arrowroot ( 2/3 tablespoon of arrowroot instead of the cornflour) or another thickener of your choice, but it definitely might affect the consistency if the substitute ration is off. If you give it a go please let me know how it turns out!

      Delete
  8. Is cornfour same as cornstarch?

    ReplyDelete

Thanks for taking the time to leave me a message!