Steamed chocolate pudding: the king of desserts

I am an unapologetic pudding pusher. Now, by pudding, I don’t simply mean that more people should eat dessert – although I do think we might feel a little more sweetly-disposed towards others if that were the case – but the peculiarly British tradition of steamed sponge puddings. Once terribly popular, now they are criminally underrepresented in the pudding canon.

But for me, they are king. Far from their reputation of being dense or heavy – stodgy – proper steamed puddings are airy, fluffy, by far lighter than most cake sponges. In fact, many pudding ingredient lists are indistinguishable from those of cakes, it is only the cooking method which differs, and two identical recipes can result in entirely different puddings, depending on how you choose to cook them. This is because steaming is such a gentle way of cooking. Steaming uses indirect heat, and cooks the pudding more slowly, for a longer time than baking a pudding – so the chances of the pud drying out are minimal, leaving the finished pudding soft and springy, with a delicate crumb.