May 29

May 29 Pound cake pudding // A thrifty Victorian recipe adaptation

While looking historical pound cake recipes I came across a blog where the author found a thrifty Victorian recipe for sponge cake pudding. It consisted of only one sentence and instructed the reader to pour a custard over sliced stale sponge cake and bake in the oven. So after baking 3 pound cake within a span of a week, that seemed a mighty fine idea. I mean sponge cake… pound cake… close enough. Lacking more instructions, I also took it as a licence for creativity.

With the pound cake being flavoured with caraway seeds, I had to think of a flavour to complement them. Apples could have been a good choice and they are in season in Australia at the moment, but I wasn’t in the mood for them. Other more adventures option was to use carrots, think carrot marmalade mixed with custard or smeared on pound cake slices. Sounds interesting - goes into the maybe pile. Then I remembered about a strawberry salad recipe from Heidi Swanson cookbook Near and Far. She used caraway seeds in the recipe and I have used the combination before and loved it. So I fished out some of my last seasons strawberries from the freezer and defrosted them, intending to mix with the custard. However in my local shop the new season strawberries appeared on the shelves and they smelled wonderful so I changed my plan. I cut a punnet of fresh strawberries into smaller pieces and mixed with the cake, then I poured the custard on top and baked it. For the defrosted strawberries, I blitzed them in a food processor with little bit of balsamic vinegar and swirled in some freshly whipped cream. It hit the spot. Never let old cake go to waste!!

Baked pound cake pudding with strawberries

for the pudding
380 grams pound cake, sliced or cut into smaller pieces (it was about 1/2 a cake)
4 eggs
250 ml cream
250 ml milk
1 tsp vanilla extract
50 grams caster sugar
250 grams hulled and cut strawberries

for serving
pureed strawberries with little bit of balsamic vinegar and whipped cream

Preheat the oven to 160°C (fan). Butter the dish, either individual or one large.

Mix the pound cake with the strawberries put them in the baking dish(es). In a bowl mix together eggs, cream, milk, vanilla extract and sugar and pour it over the cake. Make sure that there is enough cake above the custard, as that will crisp up in the oven. Let it sit on counter top for 10 minutes, then put it in the oven for 25 - 30 minutes or until the custard is just set. Serve with whipped cream and strawberry sauce.