British Puddings are dying out 😮

Not in my house. I’ve just made a blackberry and apple plate pie with short crust pastry, its was egg washed and sprinkled with sugar and it is cooling beautifully on the rack as I type.

There’s also an egg and bacon pie(not a quiche!) baking in the oven too - recipe from The Dinner Lady on YouTube.
I have a sweet tooth but also something known as self control

I haven’t eaten anything today though apart from some bread and marmalade this morning and Tuesday and yesterday the heat was just too much for me to even contemplate proper food, so just a couple of cuppas and lots of iced drinks and some oatcakes..well ok a handful of skittles and a glass of chilled coconut water when the heat died down as I lounged to the whir of the electric fan 🪭

Always disliked puddings. My German mother was very disdainful about English puddings, hence we always had dessert. Usually fruit salad or something like her delicious lemon mousse. I’m not averse to the occasional M&S trifle though!

I am encouraged now to try my hand at a good English Pudding. I googled them and do many look good.

I also think about trying to start a proper hat/fascinator trend here in the US too.

Crumbles are relatively quick and easy and are often to be found on menus - I don’t see them disappearing any time soon. And I’m informed by a relative who spends much of the year in Paris, that they are now very popular in France - he said ‘every bakery has them now.’

Certainly they were always popular with French neighbours of BiL, when we stayed at his place not far from Dijon. I used to make them with any available fruit - any strawberries that. needed using up, ditto peaches, rhubarb out of the garden, apples, you name it. Often a mix of all sorts!

Yes my choice is either nothing, fruit or fat free yogurt and fruit. Today is strawberries and yogurt.

But high days and holidays I make a pudding. All sorts get made. From a traditional trifle (which I adore) to mousse to custard tart, rice to fruit tarts, to a variety of steamed sponge, to summer or winter pudding to meringues (bit too sweet for my taste) to Charlotte cake (to be made for my sisters birthday)

What a shame to miss out on such luscious- ness

I would happily eat jam Roly poly, syrup or jam sponge every day but I wouldn't fit through the door!
I have plain yogurt after my main meal every day.

I love puddings, but we have Greek yogurt with home made bramble coulis nearly every night.

Less fattening, I think.

But in the wintertime, love a rice pudding made with evaporated milk, or a treacle sponge with custard,

Just not too often.

A bit of what you fancy does you good, as long as it’s an ‘occasional’ bit.

I imagine many younger folk have never been taught to make puddings at school, and just buy a supermarket one if required.

Sad really.

I haven't had much experience of e.g heavy steamed puddings because my late mother rarely made them and I have never cooked them and the OH who does a lot of of the cooking doesn't make them.
OH occasionally does an apple or other fruit crumble that I love or a light bread and butter pudding using croissants instead of bread that I also love.
These days I wouldn't want a heavy pudding. Not enough appetite; too heavy; too many calories.
What a bore .com 😒😒😒

In summer we still have puds, yesterday had sticky toffee pudding but with a nod to the season by adding vanilla ice cream rather than custard. There is something rather gorgeous about seeing vanilla ice cream start to melt on a hot pudding. In winter is custard of course.
My favourite pud of all time though especially in this season - and btw I call all desserts puds - is a home made trifle.
Made a Black Forest trifle last week and it was gobbled up by the family in record time.

They are not dying out in our house. I make them most days.

M&S do a pack of two small ‘steamed’ puds that you can microwave.

Thanks for that info, Oreo. I'm going to look out for them!

I lived with my grandmother and she was a pudding expert.

She used to make:- Queen of puddings, lemon meringue pie,
spotted dick, apple Charlotte, spicy rice pudding, silk stocking, Eve's pudding, bread and butter pudding, jam roly-poly and summer pudding to name but a few. She made custard using eggs, milk, vanilla pods and sugar.

She was very thin and never put on any weight.

According to English Heritage (via a Guardian report published today), traditional British puddings are indeed facing serious decline – about two-thirds of households now make puddings only once a month or less, and a third never prepare them at all. They warn that classic desserts like steamed puddings and crumbles could disappear within 50 years unless efforts are made to revive them.

Just a couple of weeks ago I made a steamed syrup sponge. I make fruit crumbles and milk puddings frequently, rice tapioca and semolina being favourites.
DH still works part time and often finishes at 8pm. He likes a sandwich and a pudding at that time of evening, instead of a full meal.

Terribull, I’m sure the reason a lot of people don’t like 🎄pudding is that the shop bought ones are almost always so dark, dense and heavy.
My homemade ones, from an old GH recipe, are a lot less dense and heavy - people who say they don’t like 🎄pudding have often even had seconds of mine.,

windmill1

Given the runaway obesity crisis in the UK - which is something else that's crossed the Atlantic - it's probably a good thing that puddings are dying out.

Our increasingly sedentary lifestyles cannot take meat, veg, gravy and Yorkshire pudding followed by heavy puddings with gallons of custard or cream, on a regular basis.

Tbh, I think it’s more to do with fast foods, made with trans/veg oils, than a good, old fashioned pudding.
Back in the day we had a pudding of some description. None of us were fat.

I often make crumbles, an Eve’s pudding, or the occasional pie inc. a lemon meringue, but apart from 🎄pud I’ve never made a steamed one.
I really fancy a Sussex Pond pudding, but have yet to make one.

I used to make an apple sponge pudding - stewed apple with bought trifle sponges on top (split in half) and homemade proper custard on top, baked within a bigger tin with water - a makeshift Bain Marie. Quicker and easier than it sounds!

TBH we only have a pudding once a week, if that. We’d both be like the side of a house if we had one every day.

It’s not like my childhood 1950s, no car, no central heating - we needed those calories!

Coming back to this, the occasions where a pudding is served in our house, would be after a Sunday roast when we have guests or Christmas dinner, it occurs to me we rarely have room for the pudding, it might be eaten in the evening a good few hours later, for us anyway. Our children and grandchildren would polish it off sooner. Not Christmas pudding though, that it seems is universally hated by younger generations, there always has to be an alternative.

Not in this house while I live and breathe…😱

perish the thought that Sussex Pond Pudding, Eton Mess, Apple Betty, Crumble, Steamed Jam Sponge (alright, I sometimes microwave it…😉) Jam Roly Poly and Spotted Dick wouldn’t be devoured by Mr PG! I suspect it’s the main reason he married me Dear Reader…

And I always say pudding or pud, never dessert.

Who doesn’t love a great British pud?

windmill1

Given the runaway obesity crisis in the UK - which is something else that's crossed the Atlantic - it's probably a good thing that puddings are dying out.

Our increasingly sedentary lifestyles cannot take meat, veg, gravy and Yorkshire pudding followed by heavy puddings with gallons of custard or cream, on a regular basis.

I think that would only ever have been on a Sunday.
I’ve never made a steamed pudding, but do crumbles of various kinds and fruit tarts, rice pudding or egg custards.
Even do custard now and then.
M&S do a pack of two small ‘steamed’ puds that you can microwave.
As for Christmas pud and custard, sheer heaven.

Apart from an apple crumble occasionally, I must admit that I never eat these lovely puddings any more. I grew up on jam roly-poly, suet pudding with jam, etc. It's just yoghurt, fruit or ice cream these days.
I suppose it's to do with trying to be healthier, or maybe for those of us who live alone, we just can't be bothered to make the effort.

My parents loved sweet foods and ate every day .
They expected a dessert .
A meal wasn't a meal without them .
I love a dessert !
Gone are the days when I weighed eight and a half stone and would lose half a stone over a weekend.
At Christmas half a stone would pile on and then fall off without dieting.
I have to admit if I do make a pudding it's eaten despite protests about weight gain and seconds are demanded.
In fact in the past I've made three types of dessert if the family visit and none is left !

Well, this week I've just made apple crumbles, Eve's puddings and apple tarts after my OH brought home two carrier bags full of apples from a friend's garden. However, I have given most of them away to family and friends.