← Nouns Cooking · British & Irish

Ingredients

• 250 g Self-raising flour
• 1 pinch Salt
• 125 g shredded vegetable suet
• 80 g caster sugar
• 180 g Currants
• 1 lemon, zested
• 1 small orange, zested
• 175 ml whole milk
• butter, for greasing

Method

1. Mix the flour, salt, suet, sugar, currants and zests in a large bowl. Pour in most of the milk and stir with a knife to a soft, slightly sticky dough, adding the rest of the milk if it looks dry.
2. Shape the dough into a fat log about 20 cm long. Lay it on a large sheet of buttered baking paper on top of a sheet of foil, then wrap loosely (leaving room for it to rise), pleating the paper, and twist the ends tightly like a cracker.
3. Put a trivet or upturned saucer in a large pan or fish kettle and add boiling water to come just below it. Lay the pudding on top, cover and steam over a low simmer for 1½ hours, topping up with boiling water now and then.
4. Unwrap carefully (watch the steam), slice thickly and serve hot with plenty of custard.

Tips

• Vegetable suet keeps it vegetarian; beef suet is the old-fashioned choice. The flour contains gluten.
• You can also steam it in a 1.2 litre greased pudding basin covered with pleated paper and foil for 1½–2 hours.

Sources

Written in our own words after cross-checking these recipes:

BBC Good Food Jamie Oliver BBC Food