Good Old-Fashioned Comfort Puddings by Sara Paston-Williams

Placeholder haiku

Distant lines on horizon

Suddenly clocks spring

Prior to perusing these musings on puddings: a promising start, a special tart, spotted, but not dick, from days of yore...

Good Old-Fashioned Comfort Puddings 

By Sara Paston-Williams

National Trust Books, 2010, ISBN 97811905400911

Mowing a meadow

Hunger pangs in the bare sun

Refreshment at four

Review & Reflections by BR

Today a sweet rain falls. Puddings are back on the menu. Let's take a look at Sara Paston-Williams' Good Old-Fashioned Comfort Puddings. It's a 7"x7" square book with too-small text, few illustrations, and plainly but pleasingly presented – often relatively convoluted – recipes for about 50 puddings. The secret to recipe books (that you use to cook with rather than as an aid to the imagination and sensory tour guide) to my mind is efficient, uncluttered presentation of information, drawing your focus to the minimum information you need to bring off the recipe, so there's nothing necessarily wrong with plain presentation. However, in my ignorance I had never heard of 'blind baking' and 'baking beans' (blind baking turns out to be pre-baking the pastry in the tin before adding the filling – wouldn't want the pastry getting sloppy – and the baking beans are ceramic weights which go over baking paper to weigh down the crust and stop it rising), which I had to look up, so I think I can fairly say that for me this instance at least was too concise. 

What's really good about this book, and I certainly recommend it (it's just that for my tastes it needs a little embiggening), is the selection of puddings and the historical introductions both for the book itself, each section, and each dish. The puddings themselves being a historical potpourri which is of course very intriguing and very tempting (cuisine is a hotly debated good, and whether all the puddings originated in the time and place suggested is sometimes uncertain). The drawback of puddings of course is that it now being summer, the climate is hot and heavy enough on its own without introducing pounds of suet into it, the heat tending rather to suppress the appetite, unless 4000 calories worth of manual labour in the sun are being expended each day. Besides which, puddings are often designed to use up a glut of fruit, and absent a glut of fruit, why present a pudding?

So unless I've missed a nettle pudding of some kind, I'm planning to stick to a small selection:

Rhubarb and Orange Betty – 

this seemed to work nicely enough and wasn't too much faff (but again, be warned, the recipes do seem to err on the more convoluted side; I could experiment with air fryer versions, but based on previous attempts at air fryer baking I suspect it would be a bake too far).

Verdict: "Too sweet."

Treacle Tart – 

"Bake blind in the usual way" – rice being employed instead of ceramic beans,  it quickly becomes apparent why you do it (to stop the crust rising, which it does). Came out alright.

Verdict: "Nice."

Old-Fashioned Bread Pud  –

Beloved of Nelson apparently and you can't get a better recommendation than that.

Verdict: "Smashing."

Gypsy Tart – 

"An almost forgotten 20th century classic, this delicious butterscotch tart originated from Kent. If you were at school in the 1950s and 60s you will remember it with affection and it's well worth reviving." True! Joyful recollection came unbidden at the mention of gypsy tart, although where the name comes from I don't know because back then it was apparently called 'caramel tart'. 

Verdict: Filling didn't set and OOZED everywhere. Maybe because I didn't use muscovado. Tasted nice tho.

Hollygog Pudding & Economical Custard – 

Pastry spread with golden syrup, rolled up and baked with milk. Used wholemeal flour and curdled the custard. It was alright (actually it's pretty good heated up).

Verdict: Good and easy, keep an eye on the custard. "Very tasty."

Royal Pye – 

A royal pain in the arse more like, what a faff. Sweet pastry tart with mince and apple. 

Verdict: I am now a republican.

(Actually, the pastry was really nice. In fact it's pretty good once you forget how much effort went into it).

All in all the recipes I tried turned out tasty; some more effort than others. Again, not my ideal cookbook format. Definitely worth a look, though. Especially if you know someone who will really enjoy them.

© Bryn Roberts 2023

Startered 19 March 2023, defrosted 18 June 2023