Clootie dumpling
This Scottish pudding has similarities with the English Christmas pudding (above), but tends to be a bit lighter, and is eaten for Hogmanay (New Year's Eve) and leftover pieces may be fried up with a hearty fried egg, black pudding and bacon breakfast the following morning. Unlike the English Christmas pudding this recipe contains no alcohol.*
Ingredients:
175 g flour
75 g suet (beef or vegetarian)
75 g currants
25 g raisins or sultanas
some 60 g sugar (can be brown sugar)
1 teaspoon of powdered cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon of powdered ginger
1/2 teaspoon of ground nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda
some 100 cc of sour milk.
Preparation:
Mix all the dry ingredients and the suet well. Stir in enough sour milk to attain a soft batter texture. Put a boiled pudding cloth into a pudding basin and sprinkle flour on the cloth. Then spoon the batter into the cloth and basin. Tie up the top of the cloth tightly, leaving enough room for the 'dumpling' to swell. Put a saucer upside down in the base of a saucepan and the pudding basin on this. Fill saucepan with boiling water, never going above the rim of the basin. Then steam in boiling water for 2 to 3 hours. Ensure that the water never boils away to below half way up the basin.
Serve hot with custard or fresh cream.
* Source: recipe from mid 1950s , supported by information in Craig, E. (1956) The Scottish Cookery Book, Andre Deutsch, London.
