Cooking Elizabeth...

I had to try and stop the Rhubarb growing this week... the weather has caused lots of new growth and we will be moving it and the others to a set of "triangles" this winter. It yielded about half a pound of usable stalk... but what to do with it.

Well, yesterday was a horrible grey day so warming comfort food was called for...
I decided to make a Betty...

Betty... the overview.

Now, to do a good one, you need about one and a half pounds of fruit, so what to add... a couple of Granny Smith apples and three Clementines seemed to suit.

If you've not come across a Betty before, it is one of the easiest puddings to make... apart from the fruit you need:
Three to four ounces of two/three day old Stale Bread... it MUST still be moist!
Three ounces of Suet
Three ounces of Demerara sugar
Seasoning  of choice.... for this I used the finely grated zest of the Clementines... for a completely rhubarb based one I usually use some powdered ginger.
Some butter.

Firstly, blitz the bread in a food processor until you have some nice breadcrumb... no need to remove crusts for this.
Put the breadcrumb into a bowl with the suet and sugar.
Mix well and add the seasoning, mix again.

You've already got the prepared fruit... up to you what size you cut it up to... raspberries don't need any... rhubarb can be cut into one inch lengths... apple in bite sized chunks... plums halved... etc.
For the apples and clementines, I matched the size of the rhubarb with the apples and just segmented the clems. On this occasion I mixed them up... but you can just as easily layer the ingredients to type!
It is entirely up to you and what you want it to look like in the bowl.

Turn on the oven... set it for 180 Centipedes... or the equivalent. [175 C for fan ovens]

Take an deep ovenproof container, it doesn't need to be glass... the one shown here is one of three Duralex ones we've accumulated... and add half the fruit.

Over this layer half the crumb mixture....
Now spread over the remaining fruit....
and top it off with the remaining crumb mixture...
and now comes the really difficult bit...
dot the top with butter.

This is the Betty on the plate... ready for cream, créme fraiche.... or...

When the oven has reached temperature, pop the pudding in the oven and set a timer for 45 minutes...
and wait.
The pudding will come out golden brown with crispy bits on the top... that is one good reason not to remove the crust on blitzing.

It is much lighter than a crumble... but just as rich! So be warned...

We ate ours with real "Créme Anglaise".... Bird's Custard!

... Bird's Custard.

As an aside... Bird's Custard now looks like créme anglaise... the egg-yolk yellow colouring has been removed... but it hasn't altered the flavour!!

The Valderance ciders are very good... they use some very good cider apples and a healthy tannin backnote is present... I'll blog about these later.