Lazy steamed jam pudding

Another lazy pudding, able to be made and eaten in about ten minutes with yourself, a couple of mugs, and a microwave. The jam I'm using is some seriously amazing stuff: cherry and mint, by ma belle Cherie. Homemade. I think this is the last jar left since it's pretty seriously delicious.

Let's get to this.

Ingredients:

flour to dust mug

non-dairy margarine or oil to oil mug

2 tB jam (homemade and slightly underset best so it's a bit runny. Otherwise you could add 1 tsp of hot water and give it a stir)

2 tB flour (I prefer wholemeal/whole wheat, as usual)

2 tB sugar (I use brown)

1/4 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp oil

dash vanilla (1/4 tsp ish)

1 tB fauxmilk or water

FURTHER WATER FOR THE STEAMIN'.

Directions:

Oil/marge up your mug, and dust it with flour. I find a tea strainer very useful for this.

(If you've got a tapered mug like mine, you can frankly probably skip this step. But remember, unlike most mug puddings, this one will be tipped out at the end.)

Spoon the jam into your mug.

Now (and here's the tricky bit) get A SECOND MUG. In this place your dry ingredients (flour, sugar, baking powder). Add your wet ingredients and stir until smooth. Spoon on top of jam in first mug.

Boil some water in the kettle. Pour into the second (now mostly empty) mug. Bonus: this starts to get this sucker clean! Place both mugs in microwave and nuke for 3 minutes.


Turn your cake out onto a plate. Eat.

Look, I got fancy for you. (Considering most of the mint in our back yard seems to have leprosy at the moment, that's some fancy mint.)

This actually makes bugger-all cake, so if you have a big mug like mine, I suggest making double. If you don't have a big mug, make double anyway. Put it in a small microwave proof bowl. You can still use a mug to stir it, I promise.

DOUBLE THE FUN amounts

Ingredients:

flour to dust mug

non-dairy margarine or oil to oil mug

3 tB jam (I wouldn't double this because 2 tB over that microwave cake was A LOT OF JAM, YO. But maybe you like it like that. And your jam isn't ubersweet like mine.)

1/4 c flour (I prefer wholemeal/whole wheat, as usual)

1/4 c sugar (I use brown)

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp oil

dash vanilla (1/4 tsp ish)

2 tB fauxmilk or water

FURTHER WATER FOR THE STEAMIN'.

I know you didn't really need all those images. But I was so shocked when I took the first one on my phone and it actually looked like it was supposed to despite it being at night that I got carried away.

Check out my new favourite food-making person!

My Drunk Kitchen.

It's like this food blog, only actually funny.

Microwave butterscotch pudding

Some years ago, Peg Kerr posted her go-to comfort food: microwave chocolate cake. Properly what the British and Commonwealth countries (at least this one) would call a pudding, it's what I grew up knowing as a self-saucing pudding. There were several flavours available in packet mix form that I remember having as a child: chocolate, butterscotch, and I'm pretty sure we had a lemon one at some stage, too.

Where Peg's differs from those packet mixes, though, is that it's designed to be a single-serve treat.

Tonight I'm far too tired to cook. I made pasta for dinner, but then I was still hungry and hankering after something sweet, and all we have in the house is 'ingredients'. So I decided to have a go at making a butterscotch microwave pudding, based in part on Pegg's original recipe. Usually I halve her chocolate pudding recipe and make it in a mug, but I'll give the direct bowl equivalent first, and then a handy cup version at the end, so no-one winds up making twice as much as they mean to because they forget to halve, e.g., the sugar. (I'm currently on pain relievers for muscle spasm, and they've left me rather woolly-headed.)

Bowl version:

Mix together in a microwave-safe bowl:

1/4 c flour

1/4 c brown sugar

2 tsp golden syrup

1/2 tsp baking powder

handful oats (opt)

Stir until smooth:

1 tsp oil

dash vanilla

2 tB milk/water

sprinkle on top:

1/4 c packed brown sugar* (see note)

mix 2 tsp golden syrup with 1/2 cup boiling water. Pour over mixture and microwave on medium high for about 4 minutes.

Cup version:

Mix together in a microwave-safe bowl:

2 tB flour

2 tB brown sugar

1 tsp golden syrup

1/4 tsp baking powder

small handful oats (opt)

Stir until smooth:

1/2 tsp oil

dash vanilla

1 tB milk/water

sprinkle on top:

2 tB packed brown sugar* (see note)

mix 1 tsp golden syrup with 1/4 cup boiling water. Pour over mixture and microwave for about 3 minutes (I'm guessing; keep an eye on it. I meant to make this amount and accidentally doubled it.)

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Notes:

Everyone knows that self-saucing puddings are served with vanilla icecream, so it hardly seems worth it to suggest that. I can point you to an awesome vegan icecream blog if you need recipes, otherwise SoGood does fine for me (shame I finished the last of the tub earlier in the evening, and am yet to have the energy to make a fresh batch).

I used wholemeal flour, as I always do, though you could use white flour (if you must). A gluten-free flour would probably substitute just fine.

The cake seems just right to me: not too sweet. The sauce, though... I think there's a little too much. Maybe cut back on the amount of packed sugar sprinkled on top? I'd try 3 tB for the full version, and about 1 1/2 tB for the cup version, and probably reduce the hot water by a smidge (say a tB or two).

No photos for you, tonight. I'm tired and my camera and I have not been on speaking terms for a bit (I lost the memory card). Also, it's cake in a cup. Nobody needs photographic urging to make that.