Cake, Pudding and the Space In Between with Colleen Thompson - is officially live! Yes we are back to regular programming after a little pause in the season. I haven’t been toes up and eating cake - I mean pudding - this whole time. I’ve been sorting out the semantics of dessert. It can be confusing, so the episode begins with a short primer on the sweet and savoury world of cakes and puddings, and how their names vary from place to place. The cake above, a Malva Pudding, is where a pudding and a cake intersect. It is also where the magic of science comes into play. The sponginess of this pudding happens when baking soda and vinegar meet- sweet bubbles and growth, that’s what this pudding/cake is all about.
And the space in between? That’s the story that lives in this cake - its journey from South Africa to a little restaurant in Canada, and the story of writer and photographer Colleen Thompson who wrote a cookbook capturing the flavours of these places. And woven through the in between is music, because as Colleen writes, “music, like food, has an incredible ability to shape us. Songs describe the longings, the passions, the small details we might otherwise miss.” And like recipes, when we record these songs, we remember who we were when we loved them.
I hope you enjoy this story of life, through the lens of a sweet, spongy, storied pudding.
x Lindsay
Links:
Dark Angel - featured in this episode with permission from Jill Barber, Rose Cousins and Jenn Grant
Colleen Thomspon - writer, photographer and raconteur
Instagram @monkeyweddings
Monkey Weddings & Summer Sapphires - South Africa to Nova Scotia: Stories, Recipes and Memories (General Public Inc, 2020)
32 Songs to Live and Cook By - Colleen Thompson
Field Guide, Halifax - Malva pudding is still on the menu!
Malva Pudding - from Monkey Weddings & Summer Sapphires, reprinted with permission.
Yield: 4-6 servings
INGREDIENTS
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
1 tablespoon smooth apricot jam
2 teaspoons white wine vinegar
1 cup flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
Pinch of salt
1 cup granulated sugar
1 large egg
1 cup milk
Syrup
½ cup sugar
½ cup heavy cream
3 tablespoons unsalted butter
½ cup hot water
(this is where some might add a splash of booze - Cognac if you have it!)
Preheat oven to 400°F and grease a square 9” baking dish.
In a small saucepan, over medium heat, melt the butter, apricot jam and vinegar together. Remove from heat and allow to cool for 5 minutes.
In a mixing bowl combine the flour, baking soda and salt.
In a separate bowl, mix the egg and sugar together until the mixture is pale yellow - about 4 minutes. Add the butter, apricot jam and vinegar mixture to the eggs and sugar together with the milk and mix.
Add the flour mixture bit by bit and mix well.
Pour mixture into the baking dish and bake for 30-45 minutes until the pudding is golden and baked through (a skewer inserted should come out clean).
In a small saucepan, over medium heat combine all of the syrup ingredients and simmer until the sugar has dissolved. Pour the syrup over the cooked pudding and allow to cool for about 10 minutes. Serve with heavy cream, custard or vanilla ice cream.
Puddings, Cakes and the Space In between