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Delicious chocolate pudding

A tribute to my grandmother’s cooking and a delicious chocolate pudding recipe

A tribute to my grandmother's cooking

Since this month we are focusing on International Women’s Day, I’ve decided to write about the female cooks and chefs who have figured strongly in my life. 

My maternal grandmother was a very good cook and taught schoolgirls cookery and needlework during World War II. It was always a treat to have lunch with her and my grandfather at their home in the New Forest. Her specialities were steak and kidney pudding, blackcurrant mousse and light-as-air sponges. The delightful dishes she made entirely by hand for her many grandchildren in a tiny kitchen were delicious, even though the portions were on the small side, especially for my teenage brothers – so we always stopped for a quick burger at the Little Chef on the way down, to take the edge off their appetites.

Having learned from her own mother, mine is also a good cook. When we were growing up she always had a pot of soup or stew simmering away and loved to include our friends at mealtimes, adding another tin of tomatoes to the soup or some more vegetables to the stew, so there was plenty to go round. Looking back, I realise she was quite ahead of her time in making her own muesli and brown bread, whereas all I really wanted was a bowl of Frosties and some sliced white. She always stole away once a year to attend a week-long cookery course, (I think it was a good excuse to have a break from the family) and my favourite was when she went to Normandy to learn patisserie-making, because when she came home we were wowed with home-made croissants and melt-in-the-mouth Tarte Tatin. (This was at a time when cooking a croissant meant buying Pillsbury dough in a tube; you’d hit the tube on the edge of something sharp and the crescent-shaped dough would pop out, ready to bake. 

After this, possibly to counterbalance the excess of butter and cream in our diet, not to mention our expanding waistbands, Mum got heavily into Cranks wholefood recipes and suddenly it was all things vegetarian: brown-flour pastry, lentil soup and nut roast. She put in a lot of hard work and effort with not a lot of praise from us at the dining table. The Cranks phase came to an abrupt end one day when we came home earlier than expected to find my father getting a Fray Bentos pie out of the oven! 

Then came the glory days of Katie Stewart: carbonnade of beef, seriously posh fish pie in scallop shells, and chocolate fudge pudding, to name a few. It was really good food. Katie was a brilliant writer and her clear instructions meant reliable results. This isn’t easy, as I remember well from my first days writing recipes for Good Housekeeping magazine. My poor editor would take me to one side explaining the result was nothing like my recipe, while the tester complained on her other side that it was all the fault of the recipe writer! 

The ever-trustworthy Jane Grigson was another of my role models, her beautiful writing conjuring up bucolic scenes of English country life, Laurie Lee-style: memorable, but just out of reach in the recent past.

My absolute favourite cook has never written a book, however. And Tish should have been a teacher, as she always brings out the best in everybody. Most head cooks keep the best work for themselves and give the newbies the boring jobs. With Tish it is the reverse, so long as everything is done to the highest standard. Fabulously generous, she gave me my first job as a (very green and nervous) eighteen-year-old just out of cookery school. I was hired to work for her for just one day, but kept being invited back, and somehow I never left. With her gentle encouragement I came to realise, for the first time in my life, that I was good at something. More than 30 years later we still occasionally work together and I continue to learn from her.

I believe these cookery writers, with their brilliant recipes, clear instructions and empathetic encouragement, like that of a mother or grandmother, help us all enjoy good food. I for one have found myself guided with a gentle hand towards the end goal, bathed in maternal warmth and a shared love of good cooking and eating. 

CHOCOLATE FUDGE PUDDING

A rustic image of a self saucing chocolate pudding just come out the oven

This Katie Stewart recipe is a huge family favourite and has never failed to please.

100g caster sugar
100g butter
2 eggs
75g self-raising flour
1level tbsp cocoa powder
1tbsp chopped walnuts, optional
1-2tbsp milk

For the sauce

100g soft brown sugar, 2tbsp cocoa powder and ½ pint boiling water, combined 

In a large bowl, beat together the butter and sugar until pale and light. Add the eggs one by one, then stir in the sifted flour and cocoa powder with the walnuts and enough milk to make a soft mixture. Spoon into a 1-1.25 litre pie dish. Pour over the sauce mixture and cook at 190°C for 40min or until the cake has risen to the top. Serve with plenty of cream or ice cream.

Lydia Brownlow was a cookery editor at Good Housekeeping Magazine and a contributor to The Daily Beast. Latterly she has been inspiring children to cook.

More info at lydiabrownlow.com

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1 Comment. Leave new

  • Avatar
    June Temerlies
    29 October 2022 9:09 AM

    Not nearly enough cocoa powder! Original recipe had 2 tablespoons in the batter. Updated recipe now has 25 g.
    Also 25g in sauce

    Reply

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