Walking for fun; quick puddings
We have just returned from spending two months as snowbirds in Mesa, Arizona. I feel like my life has been fast-forwarded past winter, as if pole vaulting from fall right into spring. The local hockey playoffs, ice carnival and other activities at the rink have come and gone without us. There are half-grown spring kittens in the cat house and I didn’t know we were expecting any. No little plants are peeking their heads out of peat moss pots this year. Spring is here, whether I’m ready for it or not.
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It was an enjoyable time away. With more rain than usual, the desert when we left was a mass of brightly colored wild flowers and cactuses just starting to bloom. The last hike of the season organized from our trailer park was mainly to view the flowers on the mountain. I thought it was the nicest hike of the year, not too strenuous and stopping often for photos.
One of the most popular exercises at the trailer park is walking. I was told the park came alive with walkers by 6 a.m., and that’s before the sun is up in February. A walk around our park netted a distance of four kilometres and many said they did that plus some streets in between.
Many malls promote walking by offering free health clinics withblood pressure checks and advice from podiatrists.
Dear TEAM: I recently was in a Regina restaurant that had the best bread pudding. It had a caramel sauce under the layer of bread. I’ve looked for a recipe like this but have not found one. I was wondering if you would know about one. – S.B., Albertville, Sask.
Dear S.B.: As yet I have not had the opportunity to taste the bread pudding you mentioned. In looking through cookbooks for a bread pudding with a sauce, I learned that bread puddings come in a variety of forms. In early cookbooks they were often made with bread crumbs instead of cubes, giving a more custardy pudding, and sometimes called custard bread pudding.
Another popular variation was bread and butter pudding, using strips or squares of bread instead of cubes and layering the bread in the baking dish with a custard mixture poured over each layer. Queen of puddings is a dressed-up version with a meringue.
We are told this dessert had a lowly beginning, designed to use up stale bread during hard times. Fortunately, it lived on as a popular dessert.
I was able to find a recipe that has a small amount of sweet caramel sauce. I do not know if this is like the one you enjoyed. If not, perhaps you and other readers will like this recipe anyway.
Bread pudding
1 cup brown 250 mL
sugar
3 cups 750 mL
buttered bread, cubed
1Ú2 cup raisins 125 mL
2 eggs 2
2 cups milk 500 mL
1 teaspoon 5 mL
vanilla
1Ú4 teaspoon salt 1 mL
Sprinkle brown sugar in a buttered six cup (1.5 L) baking dish or eight inch (20 cm) square baking pan. Place bread cubes and raisins over the sugar. Do not stir. Combine eggs, milk, vanilla and salt; pour over bread. Bake at 350 F (180 C) for one hour or until set and slightly crusty and brown.
For a more custardy pudding, bake by placing baking dish in larger pan filled with hot water to come halfway up sides.
This pudding may be made in a double boiler. Layer the brown sugar, bread and custard layers as if cooking in a baking pan. Cook over boiling water for one hour.
The sugar will form the sauce. Leave as is with the sauce under the bread or turn the pudding upside down with the sauce drizzling down from the top. Yield: six servings.
Source: Olde Family Favorites, Favorite Eastern Star Recipes, Mont-gomery, Alabama.
Hasty puddings
As with bread puddings, hasty puddings are in all the old cookbooks and they have a sauce under the batter. A simple cake batter is topped with sugar and boiling water, and as it bakes, cake forms on top, while the sauce lies underneath.
Although not very hasty by today’s standards, these puddings were often a favorite on washday and were considered rush-hour cooking. Titles for these recipes included Half-Hour Pudding, Ten-Cent Pudding, Pudding-Cake, Hard Times Pudding or Self-Saucing Pudding. In Quebec it was called Pouding du chomeur (unemployed person’s pudding.) Fruits such as raisins in the winter or fresh berries in the summer were often added. Cocoa could be added to the batter for Chocolate Hasty Pudding.
This Raisin Delight hasty pudding is enjoyed at our house.
Raisin Delight
3Ú4 cup brown sugar 175 mL
1 tablespoon 15 mL
butter or margarine
1 cup raisins 250 mL
13Ú4 cup boiling water 425 mL
1Ú2 orange, juice 1Ú2
and grated rind
1 tablespoon 15 mL
butter or margarine
1Ú2 cup white sugar 125 mL
2 teaspoons 10 mL
baking powder
1 cup flour 250 mL
1Ú8 teaspoon salt 0.5 mL
1Ú2 cup milk 125 mL
Boil first four ingredients until raisins are soft and plump.
Cream one tablespoon (15 mL) butter, blend in white sugar, and add flour, baking powder and salt alternately with milk. Pour batter into a greased eight inch (20 cm) square baking dish.
Add orange juice and rind to the raisin mixture and pour over batter. (Batter will be thick and raisin mixture very thin.)
Bake at 350 F (180 C) for 30 minutes or until tester inserted in cake comes out clean.
During baking, the batter will rise up to the top of the baking dish and the raisins will be on the bottom.
Makes six servings.
Source: Canadian Cook Book by Nellie Pattinson, Ryerson Press, Toronto. Revised 1953 edition.
