Sussex Pond Pudding

Ingredients

Equipment Needed

• •1.2-litre pudding basin
• •Large deep saucepan or stockpot with a lid
• •Trivet or upturned saucer for the base of the pan
• •Kitchen string
• •Baking parchment and foil
• •Rolling pin
• •Palette knife

Instructions

1. 1

   Prepare the basin and the water

   Butter a 1.2-litre pudding basin generously, getting into the curve at the bottom and right up over the rim. Put a large, deep pan of water on to boil with an upturned saucer or a trivet in the base. You need enough water to come two-thirds of the way up the basin once it's in. While that heats, tear a square of baking parchment and a square of foil, both large enough to pleat over the top of the basin with room to spare.

   The pleat in the parchment and foil isn't decorative. It gives the pudding room to rise as it steams. Skip it and the lid stretches tight and splits.
2. 2

   Make the suet pastry

   Tip the flour, suet and salt into a bowl and stir them through with your fingers. Add the milk a little at a time, bringing the mixture together with a round-bladed knife, then your hands, until you have a soft but not sticky dough. It should feel a bit like a scone dough, just heavier. Turn it out onto a lightly floured surface and give it the gentlest knead, no more than ten seconds. Suet pastry doesn't want to be worked. It wants to be left alone.

3. 3

   Line the basin

   Cut a quarter of the dough off and set it aside for the lid. Roll the rest into a rough circle about the thickness of a pound coin, large enough to line the basin with a little overhang. Lift it carefully, lower it into the buttered basin and press it gently into the curve. Don't stretch it. Work any tears together with your thumb. The dough is forgiving, but only if you're patient with it.

4. 4

   Build the pond

   Put half the cubed butter into the lined basin, then half the demerara sugar, scattering it into the gaps. Prick the lemon all over with a fork, twenty or thirty times, right through the skin and into the flesh. This is important. The holes are how the lemon gives itself up to the butter and sugar during the steaming. Nestle the whole lemon into the centre. Pack the remaining butter and sugar around and over it until the lemon is buried.

   Unwaxed lemons only. You're eating the skin and everything it touches. A waxed supermarket lemon will taint the sauce with something chemical and unhappy.
5. 5

   Seal the lid

   Roll the reserved piece of dough into a circle big enough to cover the top. Brush the overhanging pastry edge with a little water, lay the lid on, and press the edges together firmly to seal. Trim any ragged bits. The seal matters. If the pudding leaks during steaming, your pond drains away into the pan and you've lost the whole point of the thing.

6. 6

   Cover and steam

   Lay the pleated parchment over the basin, then the foil on top of that, and tie it in place firmly under the rim with kitchen string. Make a string handle across the top for lifting it out later. Lower the basin onto the trivet in the pan of simmering water. The water should reach two-thirds up the sides. Cover the pan, turn the heat to a steady simmer and leave it alone for three and a half hours. Check the water every half hour or so and top up with boiling water from the kettle when it gets low. Never let it boil dry.

7. 7

   Turn out at the table

   When the time is up, lift the basin out carefully by its string handle. Let it sit for five minutes to settle. Cut away the string, peel back the foil and parchment, and run a palette knife around the edge. Place a deep-rimmed plate or shallow bowl on top, invert, and give it a firm shake. The pudding should slide out, golden and domed. Carry it to the table whole. Cut into it there, in front of everyone. The pond of buttery lemon sauce will spill out across the plate, and that's the moment the whole thing is for. Serve each portion with a piece of the lemon and a good pour of cold cream.

   A deep-rimmed plate, not a flat one. The sauce is the point. A flat plate sends it sliding off the edge and onto the table, which is a small tragedy.

Chef Tips

• •An unwaxed, thin-skinned lemon is worth seeking out. The thicker supermarket lemons with the waxy finish are bred for shelf life, not flavour, and the skin can stay bitter even after three hours of steaming. A proper Amalfi or an organic lemon from a good grocer will dissolve into the sauce the way it's meant to.
• •Demerara, not caster or soft brown. The coarse crystals melt slowly into the butter over the hours of steaming, turning the sauce a deep treacly gold with a hint of caramel. Caster sugar gives you a thinner, paler pond that misses the point.
• •Don't skimp on the butter. This is not the moment to cut back. The butter, the sugar, and the lemon juice are the three parts of the sauce, and if any one of them is short the pond runs thin. A proper Sussex pond pudding is unapologetic.
• •Serve with cold double cream poured from a jug, or a thick vanilla custard. Ice cream is wrong here. The contrast you want is cold and loose against hot and sticky, not frozen.

Advance Preparation

• •The suet pastry can be made a few hours ahead and kept in the fridge, wrapped, until you're ready to assemble. Let it come back to cool room temperature before rolling.
• •The pudding itself is best eaten straight from the basin. It doesn't keep or reheat well. This is a dish to time for the moment you want to serve it, not to make in advance.
• •Leftovers, if there are any, can be covered and kept in the fridge overnight, then warmed very gently in a low oven in a covered dish. It won't be quite the same, but it will still be good.

Frequently Asked Questions

Nutrition Information

1 serving (about 165g)