Surrey bee & blackberry pudding - recipe dated 1765.

4 Servings

Ingredients

Quantity Ingredient
250 grams Flour - unbleached
125 grams Butter
250 grams Blackberries
125 millilitres Honey, runny kind.
125 millilitres Single cream

Directions

Families would search the hedgerows for juicy blackberries. They would churn their own butter, and gather honey from their own hives. This lovely old pudding, a favorite with country folk, would often contain red currents and gooseberries as well. Once cooked, a most delicious juice emerges from the pastry. Grandchildren should love this little taste of Ye Olde England..Exported to the USA by Ron in Blackpool.

Feb 1996.

Sift the flour, rub in the butter and mix to a dough with a little very cold water. Warm the honey so it becomes a little runny. Not too much mind! It just needs to be easy to spread. Roll out the dough into an oblong shape. Spread it with the runny honey - at this point Grandma's are allowed to lick any stray honey off their fingers.

Scatter on the fruit and roll the pastry up along it's longest edge [as for a rolly-poly] Yep! I Know! What's a Roly Polly? :-) It should look as if you had just rolled up a newspaper to threaten the dog <g> OK? Can we move on now? Good!... Rub an oblong dish with butter.

Press the ends of the pudding together so they seal. Place the pudding, seam side down into the dish. Pour the cream all over and bake for 45 to 60 minutes in a preheated oven 200c. 400f. British gas mark 6.

NOTE: The dish must be narrow enough to give some depth to the added cream or it will 'boil' away before being absorbed into the pudding! Serve hot with lashings of fresh runny, single, cream. This pudding is guaranteed to make you the world's best Grandma. Delicious and very More-ish!

From Ron's Plaice in Blackpool:)

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