Miss Windsor's Gooseberry & Redcurrant Suet Pudding!

Hello, darlings!
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Welcome back to Miss Windsor’s Delectables! Once again, it’s a pleasure to receive your company – How spiffing!

I say, with just a pinch of time remaining before gooseberry season is well and truly over, I’ve managed to rustle up a scrumptious steamed suet pud – Miss Windsor’s Gooseberry & Redcurrant Suet Pudding. I created this with the simplest of ingredients: suet pastry, green gooseberries, redcurrants, and the ultimate sweet touch of a generous helping of sugar, which I must highlight is most needed due to the exceedingly tart nature of these fruits.  

I based my culinary masterpiece on a Mrs Beeton recipe that was originally published in the 1861 first edition of Mrs Beeton’s Book of Household Management. Evidently my dears, I recreated a frightfully Victorian slice of British, or some may prefer to say English, food history! 

According to my 1903 Mrs Beeton's One Shilling Cookery Book, in August, gooseberries are still in season!

Darlings, for the last couple of days I’ve been running around like a “blue-arsed fly”, so my mother often trumpets! Time has flittered away at such a tremendous speed this year, that it had completely slipped my mind that the end of gooseberry season is nigh!

​You see, gooseberry season is so blinking short – late June into July, then if you’re lucky include a tad bit of August – that within a blink of an eye there would certainly be no gooseberries left to pick, just a mass of spindly stalks leftover instead. I say, do not despair my dears, Miss Windsor recommends as an alternative to fresh gooseberries to use frozen or the tinned sort. Also, in comparison, the redcurrant season is much longer – July to September, which boasts a whole two months of harvest. 

Miss Windsor's Gooseberry & Redcurrant Suet Pudding ready for steaming.......

So, as you can imagine it was all panic stations in the Miss Windsor household. Thankfully, my local Waitrose supermarket stocks an array of fruits from yesteryear, so Miss Windsor was able to purchase a few punnets of the green common type of gooseberries. Oh, and one sourced some rather resplendent redcurrants from one’s local greengrocer, which I must say added a splash of vibrancy to what could’ve turned out to be a rather unadorned and washed-out looking pudding.
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Darlings, and I must mention that it saddened me to read that our glorious gooseberry, an age-old fruit native to Europe, North-western Africa, and southwestern Asia, is at dire risk of completely disappearing from our pick of summer fruits, although some folks would argue that the gooseberry is actually making a comeback! Whether it is or not, dietary wise it’s bursting at the seams with vitamins A, C, and D. 

Steam perfect! - Miss Windsor's Gooseberry & Redcurrant Suet Pudding!

A few more titbits about our good ol’ fashioned gooseberry: during the 17th century there were over 2000 varieties grown by farmers in the United Kingdom alone, thus it’s one of the first fruits ever cultivated for commercial purposes that reached its height of fame during the early 1900s. You could whip up just about anything with this versatile fruit – gooseberry crumble, gooseberry cobbler, gooseberry pudding, gooseberry tart, gooseberry sauce, gooseberry jam, gooseberry fool, gooseberry chutney, and so on………

The hard truth is my dears, gooseberries are just not as desirable for consumption in today’s modern world. It appears that strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, and blackberries have certainly superseded the age-old gooseberry due to their availability all year round, and the fact that you’re not required to do anything more with them except pop in your mouth and chomp!​

Ready for serving - Miss Windsor's Gooseberry & Redcurrant Suet Pudding!

Also, it appears that the younger generation hasn't got the foggiest idea what the heck a gooseberry actually is, or what to do with it if they just so happen to stumble upon one! 

​Fortunately, as a young lass, I was privy to all thing’s gooseberry. You see, every year Grandmother Josie and I would frequent the local “pick your own” fruit fields in Tickenham, North Somersetshire, and together we’d strip the bushes bare of gooseberries and then squash as many as we could into my grandmother’s rather tired yet well-loved woven shopping basket. 

Fancy a jolly good helping of Miss Windsor's Gooseberry & Redcurrant Suet Pudding!

​It also brings me great pleasure to tell you, that Grandmother Josie was immensely fond of baking, and after a hard days graft at the pick your own fruit fields, she would spend the next day baking gooseberry pies in her Somersetshire galley kitchen, most of which she’d store in her 1970’s chest freezer.

And I affectionately recall, following a nourishing and hearty Sunday roast, one of Grandmother Josie’s fruity pies would always be served for the sweet course, and enjoyed from my great-great aunt Betty’s luxurious yellow, primrose encrusted vintage dessert bowls - those were the days!
 
Enjoy with oodles of gusto and a splash of cream! 

Darlings, if you fancy recreating another gooseberry classic with a bit of a twist, then please do try MISS WINDSOR'S PINK & SPICY GOOSEBERRY RASPBERRY FOOL! 

ALL PHOTOGRAPHY BY MISS WINDSOR 

MISS WINDSOR'S RECIPE: 

​Preparation time: 1 hour (including 30 minutes resting time for the suet pastry)
Cooking time: 1.5 hours  
Serves: 4 delightful guests

Ingredients 

Suet Pastry: 

• 350g (2 & 1/3 cups) self-raising flour 
• 180g (1 & 3/4 cups) vegetable or beef suet 
• 60g (1/4 cup) caster sugar
• cold water  

 
Pie Filling: 

• 1 & 1/2 pints (850 ml / 30 US fl oz) of green gooseberries and redcurrants – measured the traditional way.
• lots of sugar!  

 
Equipage

• 1-pint pudding basin (570ml or 20 US fl oz) 

 
Method
 
Suet Pastry: 

1. First off, let’s get cracking with the suet pastry! Into a large mixing bowl sieve, the flour, then add the suet and sugar. Mix well. 
2. Add a few drops of cold water at a time and with a curving motion mix with a knife. 
3. Darlings, this pastry must not be dry, so add enough water and continue to mix with a knife until the dough is quite sticky. 
4. Now using you’re pretty little mitts, bring the dough together until it’s rather smooth and elastic. Cover with cling film and rest for 30 minutes in the fridge.  

The Pudding: 

1. Cut the stalks and the little bobbly bits off the gooseberries – top and tail is the official method here! Transfer to a colander.
2. Strip the redcurrants from the stalks and add to the gooseberries – thoroughly wash the fruit and place to one side to air dry.
3. Take a 1-pint pudding basin and grease well with butter.
4. Retrieve your pastry from the fridge and cut away a quarter for the lid – set to one side. Roll out the rest of the pastry onto a floured surface – a fairly thick circle large enough to line the basin - plus a little extra.    
5. Line the basin with pastry and firmly press into shape all round. Then add a layer of fruit and sprinkle with a generous helping of sugar. Repeat until you’ve used up all the fruit and your last layer is higher than the edge of the basin – don’t forget to cover the last layer with sugar.
6. Moisten around the edge with water and cover with a rolled out pastry lid, then with a sharp knife trim off the excess pastry.
7. With the left-over pastry make a few jam puffs and bake in a moderate oven for 10/15 minutes, or pop in the freezer for another time!

To Steam: 

1. Now, place an old saucer onto the bottom of a large saucepan (this will prevent the basin from cracking) then fill with water, about half-way up the basin, and immediately put onto boil. 
2. Time to prepare the basin for steaming. Cut a large piece of greaseproof paper and foil. Place the foil piece on the kitchen counter followed by the greaseproof paper on top, and lightly grease with butter.
3. Holding both pieces together, make a pleat in the centre, then gently place over the basin and mould it around the edges.
4. Using a long piece of string, tightly wrap it around a few times under the “lip” of the basin and secure with a knot or two.
5. Make a handle by threading the string from one side to the other. Repeat and secure.
6. Trim off the excess paper/foil and tuck both layers under neatly, then place the basin into the saucepan and cover with the lid – remember to weigh the lid down with something heavy.
7. Regularly top up with water, as you wouldn't want your pudding to boil dry!
8. Steam exactly for 1 & 1/2 hours. Turn out onto a pretty vessel whilst hot. 
9. Serve to your delightful guests with lashings of cream!