Grim up North Heath

Eve’s pudding and custard

Written by

Fraser Steele

in

This was a favourite growing up. My mum would often make puddings on Sundays – how she found the time I don’t know.

Feeds four.

Timings: Prep: 30 min. Cooking: 40 min Eat: 10 min

Ingredients

Filling

600 g Bramley apples1

Caster sugar to taste (about 60 g)

Lemon juice

Mixed dried fruit (optional)

Sponge topping

100 g caster sugar

100 g butter or baking margarine

2 eggs

100 g self-raising flour

Custard

100 ml double cream

350 ml whole milk

2 egg yolks

1 1/2 tablespoons cornflour or sauce flour

50 g caster sugar

1/2 teaspoon vanilla essence

You’ll need a big saucepan, a large bowl and a baking dish. An electric mixer will also help.

Peel and slice the apples and heat gently in a saucepan. Add the caster sugar to taste2 and lemon juice to stop the apples going brown. Once they have started to fluff up turn off the heat and allow to cool. Take the butter out of the fridge.

When the apples are cooled, set the oven to 160 °C (fan), gas mark 5. Put the apples into a buttered oven-proof dish. If you’re adding dried fruit or mincemeat put this on top of the apples.

Apples in a dish with some dried fruit on top. This is the stuff that I use for fruit cake, it includes dried peel as well as raisins and sultanas.

Start making the sponge while the oven heats up.

Add caster sugar, butter and self-raising flour to a mixing bowl. I used a plastic bowl – ceramic bowls are supposed to be better for this type of thing since they keep the batter cool. Crack the eggs into the dry ingredients and beat for at least five minutes. An electric mixer is best for this, do it by hand if you’re feeling strong.

Sponge batter in a pink bowl.
Finished sponge mix. You need to mix this for at least five minutes to get air in so the sponge will rise.

Put the sponge mix on top of the apples. Make sure it’s covering the apples, then pop it in the oven for 40 to 50 minutes.

When it’s done, the sponge should have risen and be a nice golden colour.

Eve’s pudding. Remembered while I was dishing up that I needed a photo for the blog.

Serve hot with custard (method below) or ice cream.

With custard!

Custard

Make the custard when you’re ready – this should be timed to make sure the Eve’s Pudding is still warm.

Put the cream and milk in a pan and warm through to just below boiling. If you have a thermometer, heat the milk to about 85 °C.

In a large bowl, whisk the egg yolks, cornflour, sugar and vanilla. A hand whisk will be fine for this.

Cornflour, sugar, egg yolk and vanilla essence, mixed and ready to have warm mil added.

Gradually pour the hot milk onto the sugar mixture, whisking constantly. Two of us did this together (I had help from younger daughter, who made crème anglaise in Food Tech at school); she poured and I whisked.

Pour the mixture back into the saucepan. Heat gently with stirring until it thickens to your liking. Don’t heat for too long or it might curdle.

Custard warming through and thickening up.
  1. These are the best cooking apples. If you can’t get these because they’re out of season or you live outside the UK, Granny Smiths or other cooking apples will do. ↩︎
  2. Tastes vary. Bramley apples are famously tart, you may want a lot of sugar. Unless you’re like my grandad who used to eat Bramleys as eating apples. ↩︎

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