Recently at book club, we got talking about lemon butter, lemon curd and lemon cheese – I think they’re pretty much the same thing but if not, these all go well on scones and as cake fillings. Then the conversation at our end of the table turned to the universal appeal of lemon flavoured puddings, cakes. icings and drinks.
Monica mentioned she has a marvellous lemon sponge pudding recipe that amazingly includes a packet of lemon jelly crystals, but because she keeps forgetting to bring back jelly crystals from the US, she hasn’t made it in ages. Red, greeen, orange and blue are definitely available here, but she might be right about lemon. Of course, we could try powdered gelatine with some kind of lemon zest/juice/essence combo that might do the trick – lemon colouring’s no problem. I know Mike, who does much of our shopping, will now be on a mission to check out various places, and if it’s here, he’ll find some. Brain flash – I could try it with orange jelly crystals instead of lemon!!
Anway, I turned to Maureen and said this all reminded me of Mrs.S, a grandmotherly woman who came in on someone’s recommendation to give Dad a hand caring for us the couple of times in consecutive winters that Mum was hospitalised with pneumonia. We were all at school, so I think I was about 12. Mrs. S came in early each weekday afternoon to be there when we arrived home from school, and I remember we all liked her. She probably did several things to keep the household ticking over, like hang out or bring washing in, and maybe do a little school shirt ironing, though I could have done some of that by then. But most of all I remember what a good cook she was. After the first time she made her lemon self-saucing pudding for us, we begged her to make it every day!!! She did make it pretty often, but she also made other things, none of which I remember like that lemon pudding.
After all this time, I don’t have her recipe – doubt that Mum wever got it from her because she certainly never made it, and amazingly looking just now couldn’t find one in the CWA cook book I mentioned on June 4th last, either. There were about 8 or 9 lemon dessert recipes there, but none of them remotely like Mrs. S’s.
However, Mike and I agree this self saucing lemon pudding recipe sounds about right – and there are lots of images to give you the general idea of the lemon sauce in the bottom of the dish topped by a layer of baked sponge cake on top, served with whipped cream and/or vanilla icecream. If I ever do get around to cooking one, if it turns out ok I’ll put the picture in here. But puds and cakes are not my forte, and so I’m not making any promises on this one!