A pudding recipe for autumn

Puddings – both Christmas and sticky – fill the kitchen, the outbuildings and the ovens at Burtree Farm around this time of year.

It’s not often that we’re asked to share recipes but when appetite magazine came to visit us for an interview, we gave them a recipe to take away. We think it’s the perfect time to share it with you now that the cold season has really settled in.

This one is made with oozy, sticky golden syrup and is excellent served with clotted cream, custard or cream. Steamed puddings aren’t so trendy these days, but this pudding is a family must-have following Sunday roast – if not having a Sticky Pudding, of course.

Burtree Puddings Steamed Syrup Sponge
Enough for four

100g butter or margarine
100g caster sugar
2 large free range eggs
Few drops of vanilla extract
175g self-raising flour
A little milk to mix
2-3 tablespoons of golden syrup

You will need a 900ml or 1 1/2pt pudding basin.

Get the steamer ready and on to a simmer.

Cream together butter and sugar until fluffy. Add the beaten eggs steadily into the butter and sugar mixture, beating well after each addition.

Add the vanilla extract then, using a metal spoon, mix in half the flour with a folding method. Follow this with the other half, and add a small amount of milk to ensure you have a dropping consistency (the mixture shouldn’t fall off the spoon but slide off after a few seconds).

Grease your pudding basin and put the golden syrup in the bottom.

Steadily spoon in your mixture.

To prepare the basin for steaming, cover with parchment paper, making a pleat in the centre to allow your pudding to rise. Cover again with foil also with a pleat and tie securely with string.

Place in your steamer for an hour and a half. Loosen the sides with a palette knife, and turn out to serve warm with your choice of accompaniment.

The trick: you must ensure that no water gets into the pudding as it steams – this is why you need to cover it as tightly as possible with parchment paper and foil.