Puddings!

I said last time that puddings would need to be a post unto themselves. So here is that post. Ohh puddings, how I miss them. Now puddings are a funny thing. The term is often used to refer to general dessert. Basically, whatever sweet you have once you finish your supper may be called pudding. These types are usually spongey cakes with a sauce poured on top, sometimes filled with fruit or nuts. However this gets confusing as there are also savoury puddings that can be served with dinner. Lets save the best for last then and start with the savoury.

Yorkshire pudding is definitely my favorite of the savouries and the one you have more likely tried (compared to the others at least). The Yorkshire pudding can even be found in restaurants like Lawry's, where I first tried them, served with roasted meats and veggies just like they are across the pond. Similar, or pretty identical actually, individual Yorkshire puddings are like pop-overs. They belong in the bread category of the dinner, and are made with a thin batter similar to American pancakes, though they do not taste like them. Light, fluffy and delicious. They can be baked individually, as pictured below, or as one ina big pan then sliced into portions. 

Sometimes individual puddings will have meat put in the middle, as if the pudding is just the holder for the rest of the meal. Traditionally Yorkshire pudding is  baked with leftover meat juices, as the pudding soaks up the flavors nicely, but this is not the case everywhere. So without the juices, these puddings have a nice differentiation from the other commonly known savoury pudding. No blood!

Yep. If you have read some previous posts related to English breakfast you will have come across black pudding at least once before. Now here is another example of where the English get wacky with their names. Sure, the black part is dead on, the stuff can be almost another worldly black. But it is not pudding. Sausage would be the correct word there. Black pudding is sausage made of congealed blood, with bits of meat, potato, oats, etc. tossed in for good measure by the chef. It doesnt look much like sausage when served for brekkie, more like a disk (as it's a slice of a really thick link) and is kind enough not to reveal its true self even to the discerning viewer. Unlike in blood sausages from other countries you cant really tell what its made of, except for maybe oats that werent severely chopped. I tried it once, it wasnt bad really but I couldnt get over the fact that it was BLOOD and that made it juice. Check out this post for more details if you aren't sick yet : )

Also look back to that post for more on haggis too, which is also technically a pudding, but again don't ask me why. However I loved that one and it is quite dear to it's people. Famed Scottish poet Robbie Burns even wrote a poem entitled Address to a Haggis, declaring it the 'Great chieftain o' the pudding-race!' It also consists of ingredients we Americans tend to shy away from, but at least no blood. Haggis is made of sheep's 'pluck' (heart, lungs and liver) and some oatmeal and onions. Maybe some spices and thats about it. Give it a shot, you might be surprised. Below is a picture of a haggis that I didnt try. When you compare the looks of this one to the one in my earlier post I think we can agree it's good I waited. And that its so wonderful that I took pictures of all the food my friends and I ate. 

But now lets move on to the good stuff. The sweet stuff. The puddings we would call dessert. My absolute favorite is sticky toffee pudding. It is a moist sponge cake doused in toffee sauce. There are often dates in the sponge but not always, just as I like it. And sometimes if its baked in cupcake pans or you get an side piece of the cake the edges will have solidified and be delightfully and delicious chewy. 

Mother Mash, an amazing banger restaurant also had delicious sticky gingerbread pudding that you dont see everywhere (but can below). Puddings like these are usually served with custard, which I will talk about in a moment but the night I took this picture I was in the mood for vanilla ice cream. 

Custard in the UK is not what we think of here. Custard is here is more along the viscosity of American pudding or creme brulee. Over there it is rather thin sauce with a mild vanilla flavor served in most places over puddings. It almost always comes on the last pudding I'll mention here. One that I didn't try but one with the funniest name. Spotted Dick. A suet pudding "spotted" with dried fruit and flavored with rum, cinnamon and other spices. Now this is a popular Christmas dessert and definitely on the sweet side of the pudding category but I fail to comprehend how a pudding of suet (raw hard fat from a sheep or cow) can be a dessert. Nonetheless the Brits seem to think anything covered in custard is delicious.

And thats all for now folks. I hope this has shed a little more light on the British culinary world. Cheers!