I love puddings and I love lemon. So this recipe for Lemon Curd Pudding is a perfect answer to a bowl full of attention seeking lemons and a craving for something warm and creamy, yet light. It’s a Jamie Oliver creation, and no matter what people say about the fellow he holds a special place in my food lovin’ heart as I have fond memories of watching his Naked Chef series and staying up late reading through his recipe books all in the quest of avoiding studying for my final exams for highschool.

In the words of Mr. Oliver; it is “dead simple” and quite rewarding as there is no messing about or hard to find ingredients. It would be a perfect ending to a hearty evening meal of roast lamb with mashed potato and buttered green beans. It reminds me of the simple and wholesome meals described on the London based blog Jam Faced. So, I thought this would be great for the What’s for Pud? event, as its the type of dessert one could whip at a moments notice when your guests (or your sweetooth) decide that there is room for dessert. There is a long baking time, with 45 minutes in a waterbath, but this could be done while you are sitting down for mains and ready just in time for the final course. Although you do need to get the water bath right. My first attempt saw the curd set to an unsatisfactory rubber like consistency. Even though kind family members assured me the pudding was still tasty, when I returned to the kitchen to try the recipe again I made sure to set the water bath with only 1/3 of water from the base of the dish and for it to be warm and not cold water.

Lemon Curd Pudding
55g butter
115g sugar
Grated rind and juice of 1 lemon
2 large eggs (separated)
55g self raising flour
285ml full fat milk

Preheat the oven to 200C

Cream the butter, sugar and lemon rind in a mixing bowl. Add the egg yolks and flour and beat in, then add the milk and 3 tablespoons of lemon juice and mix well.

Whisk the egg whites in a separate bowl until stiff, then add the rest of the mixture. Fold well making suring not to overmix as you want to retain as much air in the egg whites as possible.

Pour into a buttered, ovenproof dish, stand the dish in a roasting tin which you have filled about a third full of water. Bake in a preheated oven for about 45 minutes until the top is set and spongy and is a nice golden colour.

Tagged with: What’s For Pud? and St George’s Day

Thankyou to Sam and MonkeyGland for organising and showcasing such lovely English desserts.

It’s a funny thing this blogging business. One minute you are snapping everything in front of you before you eat it, hop online and write about the tasty little morsels. Then one day you think you’ll have a break, all the while reminding yourself to update this space about that day of making bagels or your new favourite bakery in Haberfield. But you never do, instead you procrastinate and think about attempting to (once again) transfer a year’s worth of words and images to a different publishing tool just so you can have easy to use categories and a pretty little background.

And so this is my excuse for not updating this poor excuse of a food blog.

With the much appreciated help of Matt from Abstract Gourmet I was able to not only transfer my blog, but also squat for two weeks on a development site on his server playing around with this new toy called WordPress. After I’d mess around with the style sheets all the while pretending I knew what I was doing, Matt would kindly fix everything up only to have me return the next day and delete a whole part of the code and ruin all his good work. But not only is Matt brilliant at all things Word Press, he also roasts his own delicious blend of coffee! Thanks Matt - you “tha man“!

Also, at some stage I messed up the rss feeds for The Food Palate so anyone who had subscribed to bloglines or google reader was only getting updates from April 2005. So along with the categories and pretty blue pattern my blog is now well fed. Hurrah! If you happen to start clicking around the place and find anything which looks funny in terms of layout or code, please let me know and I will try to fix it bother Matt with more questions about style sheets.

I just spent the last 15 minutes in a rage because I thought I had lost a crucial part of my cookie press, even though I had made sure to wash, dry and pack away all the little pieces after the weekend baking session at my Mum’s place. I was the definition of ‘crazy woman with a torch pacing up and down the driveway’ because I thought The Boy had lost the ring of the press while he was bringing bags of cake making utensils from the car. I was pretty sure I had seen the box pop open and the little stainless steel nozzles and cookie discs drop out of their places.

I may have had the look of a crazy woman, all beady eyed and red with anger when he sighed with the look of “its only a cookie press!”

After a few moments of deep breathing I returned to the neatly packed box and found the small ring which secures the icing nozzle screwed on ever so tight, as if it had never come off in the first place. I could have sworn it was never there. Swear on my heart shaped cookie cutter. Alas the food blogger rage reared its ugly head. Please tell me it’s more than a cookie press….

Ed Charles over at Tomatom has tagged me for a food related meme. So in the spirit of keeping new years resolutions (#8 Get onto things piling the in-tray as soon as they arrive - even food memes) here is my response in no particular order.

The idea of this meme is to list five food related challenges which you hope to achieve by the end of 2006. If you ask me, this isn’t a bad way to go about making 2006 a good (and delicious) year. Who needs to swim 20 laps every morning when you can …

1. Make a croquembouche from scratch.
You know, those pastry sculptures which did multiple rounds at engagement and wedding receptions you attended between 1995 and now. Well minus their over representation I’ve always loved their look and you can never go with choux pastry filled with cream, or non-traditional chocolate-amaretto custard!

So the plan is to make one, from scratch from pastry to filling to sugar glaze, all enough to feed a party of ten.

2. Share kitchen time with my sister, making a 3-course meal to share with the family.
This isn’t so much as a challenge because cooking with my sister is always a pleasure - I learn something new and I get to see my sister in her element. The challenge is scheduling a time to fit into our competing schedules and an impending flight to London. Still I will press on so that we can plan a menu, shop, cook and dish up before she sets up home in Soho.

3. Catch up on my list of foodie films.
Meme’s like this are great for someone like me who is an avid list maker - I get to make lists about doing things which already have a list! For #3 on my food challenges for 0-6 I’d like to catch up on all the films on my ‘To Watch’ list. Some I have never seen, and some I would like to watch again.

• A Touch of Spice
• Au Petit Margeury
• Babettes Feast
• Bella Martha
• Chocolat
• Coffee & Cigarettes
• Dinner Rush
• Eat Drink Man Woman
• Felicia’s Journey
• Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle
• Like Water for Chocolate
• My Dinner with Andre
• Tampopo
• Sideways
• What’s Cooking?

4. Less meat more fish and vegetables.
A tangent on the get heathy get fit path I’ve been on over the last few weeks (give or take a few bars of Ritter Sport - a chocolate with the word sport in the title is not lost on me) is to focus more on vegetables and less meat. I figure replacing my iron intake with sea creatures a good alternative. In doing so I have tried made steamed, baked and curried fish, as well as a delicious grilled prawn and green papaya salad.

5. Grow my own herbs.
This is something I’ve wanted to do for many years, and have failed due to lack of planning and attention. I’ve gone as so far as to buy seedlings but have never potted and watered them to full growth. Perhaps starting with a rosemary plant would be the best way seeing as they are sturdy enough to withstand my lack of green thumb. However a healthy basil and coriander plant would be perfect!

Hey Bowb, J, Sam, Sue and Stellou - wanna share your five food challenges for 0-6?