Treacle pudding

Treacle pudding is a classic British dessert consisting of a sponge cake soaked with treacle, often served with custard or ice-cream on the side. Treacle is a thick, sweet syrup made during the refining of sugar process and has a slightly bitter, caramel flavour that can also be made by substituting with golden syrup for a buttery flavour profile.

Credit: Jiwon Kim

• serves

  6

• prep

  10 minutes

• cook

  1:30 hour

• difficulty

  Easy

Ingredients

• Softened butter, for greasing
• ½ cup treacle or golden syrup, plus extra for drizzling
• 200 g vegetable suet, roughly grated
• 200 g caster sugar
• 200 g plain flour
• 2 tsp baking powder
• Salt
• 3 eggs
• 1 tbsp lemon zest
• 2 tbsp milk
• Custard or vanilla ice cream, to serve

Resting time: 5 minutes

Instructions

1. Grease a 1 litre pudding steamer (with a lid) with butter, then pour in the treacle (or golden syrup) and set aside.
   
2. In the bowl of a stand mixer with the paddle attachment fitted, combine the suet and sugar and beat on medium-high speed for 3-4 minutes, or until creamy. In a separate medium bowl, combine the flour, baking powder and a pinch of salt. Add three spoonfuls of the dry mixture to the stand mixer and mix for 30 seconds.
   
3. Add the eggs to the stand mixer bowl, one at a time, mixing well and scraping the sides of the bowl after each addition, then remove the bowl from the stand mixer. Use a spatula to gradually fold in the remaining dry mixture with the lemon zest and milk to form a thick batter.
   
4. Bring a large saucepan (with a lid) of water to the boil. Spoon the pudding batter into the prepared pudding steamer, then cover and place into the simmering water, ensuring the water only comes up halfway up the sides of the pudding steamer. Cover the pan and steam for 1½ hours. Remove the pudding from the pan and allow to cool for 5 minutes before turning out onto a serving plate.
   
5. Drizzle with a little extra treacle or golden syrup and serve with custard or ice-cream.

Photography by Jiwon Kim.

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Cook's Notes

Oven temperatures are for conventional; if using fan-forced (convection), reduce the temperature by 20˚C. | We use Australian tablespoons and cups: 1 teaspoon equals 5 ml; 1 tablespoon equals 20 ml; 1 cup equals 250 ml. | All herbs are fresh (unless specified) and cups are lightly packed. | All vegetables are medium size and peeled, unless specified. | All eggs are 55-60 g, unless specified.