Treacle Sponge Pudding

Ingredients

Equipment Needed

• •1-litre pudding basin
• •Large saucepan with lid, deep enough to hold the basin
• •Baking parchment, foil, and kitchen string
• •Heavy-bottomed saucepan for the custard
• •Wooden spoon and balloon whisk

Instructions

1. 1

   Prepare the basin

   Butter a 1-litre pudding basin generously. Don't be shy about it. Get into the corners, up the sides, all the way to the rim. Spoon the golden syrup into the bottom with the lemon juice. It will pool there, amber and glossy, and sit patiently while you make the sponge above it.

   The lemon juice is the quiet hero here. It cuts the sweetness of the syrup and keeps the whole pudding from tipping into cloying. A small addition, a big difference.
2. 2

   Cream butter and sugar

   In a large bowl, beat the butter and sugar together until pale, fluffy, and considerably lighter than when you started. This takes a good four or five minutes with a wooden spoon, less with an electric whisk. The mixture should look almost whipped and smell faintly of caramel. Don't rush it. This is where the lightness comes from.

3. 3

   Add eggs and lemon

   Beat in the eggs one at a time, with a spoonful of the flour after each to stop the mixture curdling. It will look briefly alarming. Keep going. Once all the eggs are in, stir through the lemon zest. The batter should smell bright and buttery.

4. 4

   Fold in the flour

   Sift the remaining flour with the baking powder and salt, then fold it into the batter with a large metal spoon. Gentle, deliberate strokes. Add the milk at the end to loosen everything to a soft dropping consistency, the kind that falls reluctantly from the spoon when you give it a shake. Not runny. Not stiff. Somewhere between.

   A recipe is a conversation, not a contract. If the batter feels tight, another splash of milk. If it's loose, leave the milk out. Trust what the mixture is telling you.
5. 5

   Fill the basin

   Spoon the batter carefully over the syrup, trying not to disturb the pool at the bottom. Smooth the top with the back of the spoon. Leave a good centimetre of clearance below the rim. The sponge will rise, and it needs somewhere to go.

6. 6

   Cover and steam

   Cut a square of baking parchment and a square of foil, each big enough to cover the basin with overhang. Lay the parchment over the foil and make a pleat down the middle to allow for expansion. Press this over the top of the basin, foil side up, and tie it on tightly with string just under the rim. Trim the excess. Lower the basin into a large saucepan and pour in boiling water to come two-thirds of the way up the sides. Bring to a gentle simmer, cover the pan, and steam for one hour and forty-five minutes.

   Check the water every half hour or so and top up with boiling water from the kettle if it's running low. A pan that boils dry is the quickest way to ruin a pudding and a saucepan in the same afternoon.
7. 7

   Make the custard

   While the pudding steams, make the custard. Warm the milk with the split vanilla pod in a heavy saucepan until it's just about to simmer. Take it off the heat and let it sit for ten minutes to infuse. In a bowl, whisk the yolks with the sugar and cornflour until pale and thick. Pour the warm milk over the yolks in a slow stream, whisking constantly, then return everything to the pan. Cook over a low heat, stirring steadily with a wooden spoon, until the custard thickens enough to coat the back of the spoon. A line drawn through with your finger should hold. Don't let it boil.

   The cornflour is a safety net. Traditional custard uses yolks alone, but a teaspoon of cornflour stops it splitting if the heat creeps up on you. No shame in it. A smooth custard beats a purist one every time.
8. 8

   Turn out and serve

   When the pudding is done, it will feel springy to the touch and smell like the best kind of winter afternoon. Lift it out of the pan carefully. Snip the string, peel back the foil and parchment, and run a palette knife around the edge. Place a deep plate over the top, invert, and lift the basin away. The syrup will come cascading down the sides, glossy and dark and catching the light. Pour custard generously around it. Serve at once, while everything is still warm and the syrup is still moving.

Chef Tips

• •Use golden syrup, not black treacle, despite the name. Treacle sponge is misleading: it's made with pale, amber golden syrup, not the dark bitter stuff. Black treacle will overwhelm the sponge and turn the whole pudding gloomy. Lyle's, if you can get it, is the one.
• •Room temperature butter and eggs make a lighter sponge. Take them out of the fridge an hour before you start. Cold butter won't cream properly and cold eggs will curdle the mixture the moment they hit the bowl.
• •If you don't have a proper pudding basin, a heatproof ceramic bowl of roughly the right size will do. What matters is that it holds its shape, takes the heat without complaint, and fits into your saucepan with the lid on.
• •Leftover pudding reheats beautifully. A few minutes in the microwave, or twenty minutes back in a steamer. The second-day pudding is almost better. The syrup has had time to settle into the sponge and the whole thing tastes deeper.

Advance Preparation

• •The custard can be made up to two days ahead and stored in the fridge, covered with cling film pressed to the surface to stop a skin forming. Reheat gently, stirring constantly, and loosen with a splash of milk if it's thickened too much.
• •The pudding itself is best freshly steamed, but it reheats well. Cover the turned-out pudding loosely with foil and warm through in a low oven for fifteen minutes, or steam in the basin again for twenty minutes.

Frequently Asked Questions

Nutrition Information

1 serving (about 315g)