Pear & Ginger Pudding

The pear and ginger pudding was part of our great gastronomic English fare dinner last weekend which followed our homemade pork pies, and dare I say the pie were served with mushy peas! I say this tongue in cheek because the English do get their legs pulled a bit about their cuisine and I agree we do have some terrible dishes but if you move out of the mass produced fast food of the cities and look towards the regional dishes you will always find culinary delights like our puddings or pork pies which have been enjoyed for hundreds of years. They may not look as glamorous as dishes of our Continental cousins but done correctly and with love they are truly delicious.

The ginger and pear pudding is originally from an old cook book from my Grandmother, which by the way also has a Christmas recipe handwritten my her mother for ‘Christmas cake during the war and ration times’ which I will share with you next month. I have changed the consistency a bit to make the pudding lighter in texture.

Ingredients

125g butter
60g sugar
60g golden syrup
125g SR flour
2 eggs
2 tbsp milk
2 pears, peeled and sliced
2 tablespoons golden syrup
1 heaped tsp ground ginger

Method

Grease a 22cm cake tin
Heat oven to 180 degrees centigrade.
Spread the 2 tablespoons of syrup in the base of the cake tin and arrange pear slices over the top.
Place butter, sugar & 60g golden syrup in a bowl and beat with an electric whisk or good old fashioned wooded spoon until light and fluffy.
Add one egg at a time and whisk in between both additions.
Sift flour & ginger into mixture and fold gently through with a metal spoon so not to loose all the air that has been beaten in.
Add the milk, the sponge should have a ‘dropping consistency’ at this stage.
Spoon mixture over the sliced pears in the cake tin.
Bake in oven for 35- 40 minutes or until an inserted knife comes out of the sponge clean.
Allow to cool a bit before removing from tin. Turn upside down and serve with hot custard or ice cream.