Meringue Topped Summer Pots (Individual Queen of Puddings)

With the pea soup currently enveloping Greenwich, this is a little ode to summer before we hurtle headlong into winter and all its joys!

With meringue piled high and summery strawberry jam, sprinkled with coconut in the middle, this is all about the best of summer - but in individual portions!

Adapted from a recipe by Delia Smith called Individual Queen of Puddings

Serves 2
270 ml of skimmed milk
5g of low fat baking margarine
55g of breadcrumbs
30g caster sugar
1 lemon
2 eggs
2 tbsps strawberry jam or other
Shredded cocnut to sprinkle

Heat oven to 200c
Bring the milk to the boil on stove, remove from heat, add in butter, breadcrumbs, half the sugar and lemon zest, leave for 15mins to swell
Separate eggs
Beat yolks and add to breadcrumb mixture, divide mixture between two buttered ramekins
Place on baking tray in oven at 200c until set - approx 20 mins
Meanwhile in small saucepan, melt jam over low heat until runny
When puddings are set, spread jam mixture over them and spinkle over coconut
Now beat egg whites until stiff peaks, whisk in rest of sugar, pile high on puddings
Bake for further 15mins until tops are golder brown

The Pudding Clubs 'Jam and Coconut Sponge'

Steamed puddings are the order of the day as the nights draw in, I found this great recipe on the fabulous The Pudding Club website (you can grab the recipe through the link).  I had never attempted a steamed pudding before and took guidance from the good old BBC Food Techniques website and it worked a treat!!  The pudding was moist with just the right amount of coconut running through the sponge and topped off with a good dollop of jam.  The one and half hours waiting for the pudding to steam was well worth the wait!  Although not shown in the photo we did of course add lash.ng of custard to it.

Changes to recipe:  I used strawberry rather than raspberry jam but to be honest the variations that you could use with the pudding are endless!

Susan Reimer's Apple Spice Muffins

So I had some dessert apples I needed to use and I had been hankering after a muffin for a while - put the two together and I heard Apple Muffins calling!.  I have a great little book by Susan Reimer called Muffins Fast and Fantastic.  The book has a multitude of flavours, and lots of muffin baking advice.

The original recipe is below:


Ingredients
255g plain flour
3 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 and 1/2 teaspoons mixed spice (or try 1 and 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon plus 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg and a pinch of ginger and cloves)
 raising flour
110-140g fine white granulated sugar
1 egg
170 grams chopped apple
150ml milk
90ml vegetable oil or 85g butter melted
60-85grams raisins, sultanas or chopped walnuts


Optional topping
3 tablespoons soft brown sugar
60grams walnuts, chopped


Method

• Preheat oven to 190-200C. Place paper cases in a muffin tin (makes 10-12)
• In a large bowl, sift together: flour, baking powder, salt, spice and sugar.
• In a second bowl, beat egg with a fork. Stir in chopped apple and milk, followed by oil\melted butter.
• Pour all of wet mixture into dry. Stir until just combined, adding dried fruit\walnuts during the final strokes.  This batter is thicker than most: apple released juice as it cooks
• Spoon into tins. Sprinkle with topping. Bake about 20-25 minutes until tops are lightly browned and spring back when pressed gently. Cool for several minutes to make removal easier.