Steamed pudding

One of the things I've never cooked before (to my memory at least) is a steamed pudding. My other half buys these little microwave puddings all the time from Co-op which are pretty nice but so expensive for what you get, so I figured I should at least try to come up with an alternative. And what should happen to be one of the yummy recipes in this month's Waitrose magazine? Valentine Warner (not usually one of my favourites but still) does a Steamed butterscotch pudding. For some reason it doesn't seem to be on the website yet so I can't link it but pick up the January 2012 Waitrose magazine and you're sorted.

It's a pretty simple recipe anyway, just blitz a basic cake mix and pop it in a pudding basin (had to buy one specially but I think it's going to get some use!). My main problem was what to steam it in, but it turns out that a Le Creuset casserole is the deepest thing I own, and it worked like a dream. It holds the heat so well that it keeps it steaming really consistently and is much more air tight than I thought so hardly any of the steam escaped. I didn't even need to top it up with water, despite accidentally leaving it to cook for about half an hour longer than the recipe suggested. It was only himself being hungry and asking why his pudding was so late that reminded me at all! It didn't seem to mind though, as you can still it still looks pretty puddingy:

If I made it again, I might do a syrup one so you get a bit of sauce with it. As it was, I had planned to do custard but we didn't have much milk left at the time so that didn't really work out. Surprisingly though, it's really moist so didn't seem too dry on its own.

I'll definitely be making steamed puddings again. The only thing is you have to have a couple of hours for it to cook, but if necessary I can make it one day and eat it the next.