queen of puddings

raisin bread slices

Happy Birthday, Queen Elizabeth! I tried to do you proud by making a famous English pudd but I'm not too keen on the result. Sorry! My English flatmate said it tasted.... 'English' which is good but not exactly brilliant if you know what I mean...

 

unbaked bready custard... hmmm

Anyway, what really could be more appropriate than a quintessential English pudding that also uses the birthday girl's title - Queen of Puddings. I'd never made (let alone seen) a Queen of Puddings so it was all very new. And odd. I used the most traditional recipe I could find, by Jane Grigson. 

 

not sure if it looks any better baked



Essentially, a Queen of Puddings is: a baked custard base that has bread crumbs mixed through it which is then covered in a thin layer of raspberry jelly which is then covered in a meringue. The thriftiness (egg whites leftover from custard used to make meringue) and the fact that there's breadcrumbs in this pudding all pretty much scream classic Englishness pudding :)

fig jam isn't helping either

I didn't go exactly traditional; instead of normal bread crumbs, I used raisin bread, and instead of berry jelly, I used fig jam.



meringue looks nice but then, it always does

I'm not really sold but perhaps if I did it a bit more properly? I dunno - maybe there's a reason I've never had a Queen of Puddings pudding before...



finished pudd

I haven't given up on this pudding but I'll probably wait until the Queen's next birthday before giving it another go :). I have to confess that it's simplicity is probably what makes this pudding nice and my attempt to justify having raisin bread in the house might've been thte poor thing's downfall. Next time, I think I'll try a Delia Smith's recipe.