South African · Dessert
Cape Brandy Pudding
- Intermediate
- 30 min
- roughly 2 of 4 for cost
- Vegetarian
Leads with richness that coats and comforts, a sweet edge rounding the corners, leaving a faint perfume.
Ingredients
- 250 g pitted dates, chopped
- 250 ml boiling water
- 5 g bicarbonate of soda
- 120 g unsalted butter, softened
- 200 g caster sugar
- 2 large eggs
- 250 g plain flour
- 10 g baking powder
- 2 g fine salt
- 100 g pecans, chopped
- 200 g caster sugar, for the syrup
- 150 ml water, for the syrup
- 60 g unsalted butter, for the syrup
- 80 ml brandy
- 5 ml vanilla extract
Equipment
Sheet pan
The skills inside
Allergen screen
Found: gluten · dairy · egg · nuts · alcohol
Screened for: gluten, dairy, egg, nuts, peanuts, fish, shellfish, molluscs, soy, sesame, celery, mustard, lupin, alcohol. Not screened: sulphites.
Screened by keyword from the ingredient list, not reviewed by a person; check every label for what the list cannot show.
Method
- Pour the boiling water over the dates with the bicarbonate of soda and leave 10 minutes, until the fruit slumps and the liquid thickens. 10 min
- Cream the softened butter with the 200 g sugar until pale, beat in the eggs one at a time, then fold in the flour, baking powder, salt, pecans and the dates with all their liquid.
- Bake in a buttered 23 cm dish at least 6 cm deep at 180C (350F) for 40 minutes to 45 minutes, until the centre springs back under a finger. 40 min
- Boil the syrup sugar, water and butter for 5 minutes, then take the pan off the heat before stirring in the brandy and vanilla. 5 min
- Stand the dish on a tray, prick the cake all over with a skewer, and ladle the hot syrup over the hot cake in three goes, waiting each time for the surface to clear.
How to tell it is going right
This dish has no standard of its own yet. It is judged on the technique it exercises: checked at the pan, while there is still something to be done about it.
Folding: keeping the air in 34 recipes
- The air was actually built first and it shows: whatever was creamed or whipped has changed colour and grown in volume, pale and light rather than dense.
- The two mixtures were brought closer before being combined: a little of the light one worked into the heavy one first, so the rest is not beaten flat trying to move it.
- Folded and not stirred: a broad implement down through the middle, across the base, up and over, with the bowl turned between strokes.
- Stopped the moment the streaks disappear. It is still visibly aerated and holds its shape briefly when the spoon lifts away.
- Into the tin and into the oven straight away: a batter left standing on the bench gives back the air it was built for.
Where it goes wrong It was stirred until it looked perfectly smooth. Every stroke past the point where the streaks vanish knocks out air that cannot be put back, so the bake comes out dense and short of the tin, and often wet through the middle where there was no structure to hold it.
At the Table
- The Pour
- Sauternes
- Also Right
- Demi-sec Champagne
- From the Taps
- Belgian tripel
- Zero-Proof
- Jasmine tea
The sweetness rule is absolute: the pour must be sweeter than the plate, and acid keeps it from cloying.
Saved on this device and kept across visits: export from My Menu to move them.