Steamed Puddings - Serves 6
Ingredients
- 75g gluten free flour
- 35g maize flour or cornflour
- 40g ground almonds
- 1 tsp gluten free baking powder
- 150g butter or margarine, at room temperature
- 150g caster sugar
- 3 eggs, beaten
How to make this recipe dairy free?
Need some advice on ingredients see -
The wheat, gluten and lactose free store cupboard
Method
This is a basic sponge recipe. Use this as the basis for any flavoured steamed sponge.
If you are steaming your puddings in the oven, preheat to 190°c / 375°f / gas mark 5
Grease six individual pudding moulds or a 1 pint pudding basin with butter.
Sieve together the gluten free flour, maize flour, ground almonds and baking powder four times to fully incorporate the ingredients.
Cream together the butter and caster sugar until light and fluffy.
Beat in the egg a little at a time.
Fold in the flour.
Divide the batter between the six pudding moulds.
Cover the basins with a sheet of greaseproof paper a little larger than the top of the pudding mould, cover with tin foil leaving room for the tin foil to expand with the sponge.
Place in the steamer and cook the individual puddings for 35 to 40 minutes and a large pudding for 1 ½ hours checking that the water doesn’t boil dry.
You can test if the sponge is cooked the same way as a baked sponge – by inserting a knife in the centre of the sponge and the knife should come out clean.
If you are steaming in the oven, boil a kettle of water. Cover each pudding with greaseproof paper and tin foil.
Place the puddings into a deep oven tin. Pour in the boiling water to come halfway up the moulds. Cover the whole tin with tin foil, place in the oven and cook the individual puddings for 35 to 40 minutes and a large pudding for 1 ½ hours checking that the water doesn’t boil dry.
Serve with custard or ice cream.
how to make this recipe dairy free...
Use dairy free margarine in place of butter.
Gem's hints and tips
In all recipes requiring self-raising gluten free flour, I advise sieving the flours together with the gluten free baking powder four times to make sure all the ingredients are evenly distributed.
If you have made a cake that is really heavy with a solid lump of eggy mixture at the bottom one reason could be because the baking powder wasn’t mixed into the flour properly.
If you can’t find maize flour then cornflour is easily available and makes a good substitute. There isn’t much difference but I do prefer maize flour. See resources.
Lemon Steamed Pudding
Grate the zest of 1 lemon into the sponge mix.
When the sponge is cooked squeeze the lemon juice into a saucepan with 250ml water and 150g icing sugar. Stir to the boil. Mix 2 tsp cornflour to a paste with a little cold water and stir into the sauce to thicken.
Pour over the sponges and serve with custard or ice cream. See custard section for dairy free alternatives.
Chocolate steamed pudding
Substitute 25g gluten free flour with gluten free cocoa powder
Chocolate Custard – add 50g cocoa powder with the custard powder before adding the liquid
Coffee Steamed Sponge
Dissolve 1 tbsp coffee granules with a tiny amount of boiling water and add to the batter with the flour.
Jam Steamed Sponge
Add a few drops of vanilla to the sponge batter
Place 1 tbsp jam on the bottom of each pudding mould before topping with the sponge mix and cooking
