Lemon Delicious Pudding after our First Pork Crackling in 10 Months

We had Alex over this evening for a delightful pre-Christmas meal. For those of you who don't know, Alex is another Postdoc at Purdue with whom I share an office. Anyway, the meal itself revolved around two things, our first pork crackling in 10 months, and a scrumptious lemon delicious pudding. Pork crackling is the skin of a piece of roast pork that is scored, salted and then goes really crispy. Unfortunately there were no pictures as it disappeared too soon, as it is one of Gemma's favourite foods. Along with the roast pork and crackling, we had roast potatoes, braised red cabbage, steamed broccoli, apple sauce and gravy made from the roast drippings.

For dessert I needed to try a recipe I have for lemon delicious pudding, which is basically a pudding that is lemon sponge cake on top and a thick lemon sauce underneath (it naturally settles that way during the cooking). The recipe itself comes from arguably one of the most useful cook books ever, Stephanie Alexander's "The Cook's Companion". The recipe turned out great, really lemony which was great after the pork.

The pudding once it's out of the oven and GBD (golden brown and delicious)!


A view inside, showing the sponge on the top and the sauce down the bottom.



From Stephanie Alexander's "The Cook's Companion":

Lemon Delicious Pudding

Ingredients
2 lemons
60g butter (4 tbsp)
1 1/2 cups sugar
3 eggs, separated
3 tbsp self-raising flour (or 3 tbsp flour and a pinch of baking powder)
1 1/2 cups milk

Method
1. Preheat oven to 180C (350F) and butter a 1L (1 Quart) ovenproof basin or serving dish, OR butter 4 10oz ramekins.
2. Zest 1 lemon and juice both. In a food processor, cream butter with zest and sugar, then add egg yolks.
3. Add flour and milk alternately to make a smooth batter. Scrape mixture from sides of processor bowl and blend in lemon juice. Transfer to a bowl.
4. Wisk egg whites until creamy and firm and fold gently into batter. Pour batter into prepared basin. Stand basin in a baking dish and pour in hot water to come halfway up sides of basin. Bake for 1 hour. Allow to cool a little before serving.