Merry Christmas!
The Snook and I were debating accompanying the photobloggers on their trip to the Zoo yesterday, but late Christmas Eve we realised we were having an HRE (“ham-related emergency”). (The emergency being the shocking lack of it in our diet.) So we spent most of Christmas Day relaxing at home and tending to a massive five-pound ham. We followed Nigella’s recipe, which entails braising the pork in Coca-Cola for 2.5 hours, then applying glaze and blasting it in the oven for a few minutes. It was delicious. We also had mashed potatoes (with truffle), glazed carrots, and steamed broccoli. For dessert, I went with another recipe from my 1965 CWA Cookbook. This time I tried “Delicious Pudding” (December 2), or “Lemon Delicious” as it’s more commonly called nowadays. Unfortunately this one wasn’t quite such a success…

   

I followed the pudding recipe to the letter, but the thing just WOULD NOT SET. I pulled it out of the oven after the prescribed half hour, and it was just milk soup. So I put it back in. It was well after an hour before it started to thicken at all. I’ve since done some research online, and all the similar recipes I can find (like this one) use slightly less milk – and sometimes more egg – and recommend baking for longer. So if I make it again, I’ll probably make some adjustments. Here’s the original recipe…

Ingredients: 1 cup sugar, 1 tablespoon butter, 1 heaped tablespoon flour, 1 1/4 cups milk, 1 lemon (juice and rind), 2 eggs, pinch salt. Beat butter and sugar to a cream, add lemon juice and grated rind, yolks of eggs, flour, and the 1 1/4 cups of milk, lastly add the well-whipped whites of eggs. Mix lightly together and bake in a pan of water in a slow oven 1/2 an hour. When doubling this recipe add only 2 cups of milk, not 2 1/2.

Hey, I just realised that the pinch of salt never gets used! What the heck was it for? Was I supposed to use it when whipping the egg whites? Because I didn’t. As for the “slow” oven, both Rodd and his Mom felt that it was around the 150°C mark, but I think I could go a little higher next time. I also might try incorporating the egg whites a little bit more; I wasn’t sure whether I should have floating islands or a total incorporated custard. The taste was pretty good, albeit incredibly rich. I think I might cut the sugar a bit next time, or else serve only a tiny bit to each person!