Iain Naysmith, Head chef at the Dalmore Inn in Blairgowrie, has put together this version of a classic summer pudding for you to try at home.
Summer Pudding or Summer Fruit Pudding as it’s also known, dates back to the early 20thCentury when it first appeared in cook books of the time, strangely called Hydropathic Pudding!
Best made with stale sliced white bread, layered in a deep bowl with fruit and fruit juice, it is left to soak overnight and turned out onto a plate. Stale bread helps the fruit juices soak through the bread, making the pudding much more tasty. The fruits typically used in summer pudding are raspberries, strawberries, blackcurrants, redcurrants, whitecurrants, and blackberries. Less commonly used are tayberries, loganberries, cherries and blueberries. In his recipe Iain uses blackberries, raspberries, strawberries and blackcurrants – of course he is fortunate to be in Perthshire – berry country -where the world’s finest berries are grown!
Serve the pudding with cream or ice cream.
Summer Pudding
2 Punnets of Blackcurrants
2 Punnets of Raspberries
1 Punnet of Strawberries
1 Punnet of Blackberries
4 oz Sugar
6 – 8 Slices of White Bread.
Creme De Casis (Optional)
4 Metal Rings or 1 litre Size Pudding Basin.
1) Go through all the fruit and give it a wash.
2) Put the blackcurrants and sugar in a saucepan with enough water to cover. Cook for 5 mins until the currants start to go soft .
3) Now add in the strawberries which have been quartered and cook for a further minute.
4) Line the base of your rings or the entire Pudding basin with clingfilm.
5) Cut the crusts of the bread and roll the bread lightly with a rolling pin. Now if your using the rings cut the bread to the same circumference of the ring. You will need 3 round slices of bread. Or if using the Pudding basin cut bread into fingers because you will be overlapping the bread into the basin. ( KEEP LEFT OVER SYRUP FOR SERVING)
6) Now add the raspberries and blackberries to the pot of the heat and now is the time to add the Creme de cassis if wanted.
7) Now drain the fruit through a sieve and keep the fruit while soaking the bread very quickly in the fruit syrup.
8) Now is the time to taste the fruit to see if you wish to add more sugar.
9) Time to build the Pudding. Start by putting a slice of bread in the syrup and put onto the bottom Now add some of the fruit mixture a quarter of the way up. Then repeat the process again with another slice of bread, followed again by filling the ring up with fruit then the last piece of bread which has been soaked in the syrup. If doing the pudding basin, cut a circle for the bottom of the basin which has been soaked in the syrup now overlap the bread now fill up the basin with the fruit, now get another circle to finish the basin.
10) Now it’s time to press the Summer Pudding with a tray put on top with some weight applied. Transfer to the fridge for 24hours even longer is better.
11) To serve take out of moulds any of the reserved syrup pour over the puddings and serve with Vanilla Ice Cream or Clotted Cream.
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