Summer pudding is a traditional British dessert made with white bread, fresh mixed fruit, sugar, and spices. The fruit is cooked and poured into a bread-lined bowl, then compressed and refrigerated overnight. It is served cold with whipped cream.
Summer pudding is a very popular British dessert in English cuisine. Its origin is thought to be the late 19th or early 20th century. The most significant characteristic of summer pudding is that the berry and other fruit juices stain white bread a deep red or pink color. English summer fruit pudding can look appealing to serve when served on a footed pie plate with fruits arranged around the round dessert.
A whole loaf of good quality white bread is used for the pudding. About 3 pounds (1,361 kg) of fresh and mixed ripe fruit are also needed. The only other common ingredients in a summer pudding are flavorings and sugar. Superfine sugar, rather than plain white, should be a part of this dish. In England, this sweetener is sold as granulated sugar. A vanilla bean, or pod, plus sweet spices like cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, coriander, and cloves flavor the pudding; some cooks also like to add a little grated lemon zest or zest.
A wide variety of summer fruits are combined to make a summer pudding. Currants, strawberries, raspberries, blueberries and blackberries are common additions. Plums and cherries can also be used. After all the fruits have been washed and sliced or left whole, if necessary for smaller sizes, simmer in a covered saucepan.
The vanilla bean is sliced and added to the hot fruit to infuse it with flavor. The fruit is only cooked long enough so that it holds its shape without being overly mushy. The spices can then be stirred into the fruit-vanilla mixture after removing from the heat.
The loaf of white bread should first remove the crusts and cut into slices before being pressed against the side of a large buttered bowl. The bread slices should line up in the bowl with no gaps. The fruit mixture is then poured into the bread-lined bowl with about a cup (250 mL) of the juice saved for serving time. The saved fruit juice is used to pour over any part of the bread in the completed dessert, which turned out to be leftover white instead of blotchy.
A plate is fitted to the top of the filled bowl. A heavy object such as a large can or jar of food is placed on top of the dish to compress the mixture. The bowl is placed in the refrigerator with the dish and weighed the day before serving. Because summer pudding requires no cooking and needs to be made ahead of time, it’s ideal for serving as a hot dessert. Fresh whipped cream is usually served with the pudding.
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