Plum Pudding

My mum’s garden is currently producing what she calls a ‘glut’.  That means that we have about twenty-thousand tomatoes, fifty-million apples, a few giant courgettes kindly donated from our neighbours and ten vats of plums. I know it sounds like I’m complaining about all this wonderful earth’s bounty that I’ve got to use at my disposal, but there’s only so much one person can do with giant courgettes.

As it appears that autumn has descended on us, my family has started to crave warm, satisfying puddings. To the point where one of them comes up to me every day asking what I’m going to make for pudding. I’ve tried to point out that this country is facing an obesity epidemic and therefore it is not NORMAL to eat pudding every single day. Still, the beasts will not be satiated with weekend-only desserts. In order to keep the porky-pies that I live with happy and use up some of the ‘glut’, we have Plum Pudding.

Ingredients

115g butter

150g caster sugar, plus extra for sprinkling

140g plain flour

1tsp baking powder

2 eggs

Pinch of salt

12 plums, pitted and halved

2tsps of ground cinnamon

Preheat the oven to 180⁰C. Grease and flour a pie dish or cake tin. I used the new Le Creuset one that I bought mum for her anniversary.

In a large mixing bowl, cream together the butter and sugar using an electric hand-held whisk until light and fluffy.

Sift in the baking powder and flour, and combine into the mixture.

Add the eggs and salt, and mix until smooth.

Finally add 1tsp of the ground cinnamon, and fold into the batter.

Pour the batter evenly into the dish.

Prepare your plums, and then press then gently all over the top of the batter.

Sprinkle the other tsp of ground cinnamon, and as much caster sugar as you like over the top of the fruit.

Bake for 45 minutes to 1 hour, or until you can insert a skewer into a cake section and it’s cooked all the way through.

Serve whilst warm with hot custard or a scoop of vanilla ice cream.