My Summer Berry Pudding

Posted on July 13th, 2011 by Mara

Making summer pudding with        lavender creme anglaise at Cook    Culture
Summer Pudding is an English favorite. This is the ultimate seasonal dessert, a dazzling dark red pudding traditionally consisting of raspberries, red currants, and black currants lightly cooked and layered between white bread. I prefer to make mine with a classic French genoise sponge cake. I wait until that one special week when the farmers market offers raspberries, strawberries, blueberries, red and black currants all at the same time. It can be assembled in a springform pan or an old fashioned scalloped pudding mold. Serve with freshly whipped cream, creme fraiche, or custard cream.

For the sponge:
4 tablespoons sugar

4 medium eggs

4 tablespoons flour

For the pudding:

3/4 cup sugar
3/4 cup water
1 cup black currants, washed and de-stemmed
1 cup red currants, washed and de-stemmed

1 cup blueberries, washed

1 cup hulled and quartered strawberries

1 cup raspberries

sweetened whipped cream

For the sponge:
Preheat the oven to 325

In the work bowl of a mixer, combine the sugar and eggs and whisk over a pot of simmering water until the egg and sugar mixture is warm and foamy. Transfer to the mixer and turn on high speed until the mixture is pale in colour, about triple in volume, and holds a stiff peak.

Remove from the mixer and sift the flour over the mixture in three additions, folding with a rubber spatula after each addition. Be careful not to over-mix or leave lumps of flour.

Pour cake mixture into the springform pan and bake for approximately 25 minutes or until the centre springs back. Remove the cake from the oven, allow to sit for 5 minutes and then remove it from the pan and transfer upside down to a cooling rack.

For the berries:

Combine the sugar and water in a wide saucepan and bring to a boil. Add the black currants, red currants, and blueberries and simmer over medium heat for 5 minutes. Remove from the heat and pour the hot mixture over the strawberries and allow to sit and cool. When the mixture is room temperature, add the raspberries.

Assembling the pudding:

Wash the springform pan and line with plastic wrap for easy removal of the pudding. (Aluminum could impart a metallic flavour if the berry juices come into direct contact with the metal.)

Slice the sponge through the centre into three rounds of equal thickness. Place the first round of sponge on the bottom of the springform. Ladle in one third of the juicy berry mixture and press down firmly with the back of the ladle. Continue the next two layers in the same fashion, making sure the top layer of berries is evenly and abundantly distributed as this will be the top of the pudding. (If you use an old fashioned pudding mold, you want to make sure berries are on the bottom as you will invert the pudding.)

Cover the pudding with plastic wrap and weight the pudding with a side plate. Place in the refrigerator and chill at least 6 hours, or preferably, overnight.

To serve, slice with a serrated knife and serve with sweetened whipped cream.

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