Firstly, apologies for the photos…I had to resort to using my phone after running my camera out of batteries after being snap-happy at a wedding two weeks ago – and I only recharged it today.
These little puddings looked fabulous in Dani’s book, and I’ve always been a sucker for raspberries – they are actually my favourite berry. I’d never made jam but had heard it was a snap in the thermomix, and it was!
I’m actually quite a baker most of the time, but I must admit that I don’t really make most of my batters in the thermomix itself. I’m not sure why – it might be that I get to see what the batter is doing when I used the old hand held mix master, and I think somehow it gives you a better feel for what’s happening with the mix, and what it needs more or less of. Anyway, I thought I’d give this a try. We had the usual Sunday family dinner so it’s always the perfect opportunity for me to get the recipes taste tested!
The Jam
As I mentioned, it’s the first time I have ever made jam. I must have read about it though, as something in the back of my mind was telling me to scrape off the ‘scum’ for want of a better word, at the top of the jam during it’s cooking. I didn’t, and the jam I made, although really tasty, had a frothy film on the top. It was fine to use in the dariole moulds as the jammy sauce for the pudding as I knew it would be reheated and melt down again, but if you were making and preserving it, you’d definitely want to get rid of it as it just doesn’t look good.
I used frozen raspberries for the jam, and they were fine. I looked high and low for pectin in the supermarket, and ended up buying something called Jamsetta. It’s been around for years, and I thought it was pectin, but the labelling threw me a little – it says “Jamsetta – with Pectin” so I wasn’t sure if it was all pectin or just part pectin. Anyway, I used the amount suggested in the recipe – 1 tablespoon (to my 300 grams of sugar, and 300 grams of raspberries) and it worked fine – if anything, a little too set for my liking – but I like my jam a bit runny.
The Steamed Puddings
Steamed puddings are pretty easy to make, but I’ve always found them a bit of hassle, worrying that things will boil dry and whatnot. These were so easy to make. I used dariole moulds for the puddings. If I had my time again, I’d mix the butter first, even if it’s at room temperature, and I would use normal white sugar instead of the raw sugar I usually use – or use raw sugar, put that in first and blitz it for a few seconds to fine it up a little. I think it would make the butter and sugar mix a little less grainy. I also found that I needed to get the spatula out a few times to push down the butter and sugar mix, so keep your eye on it.
Naturally, I must have been in a hurry when I was reading the recipe, and didn’t see there was actually a measurement for how much jam you should use in the recipe. I didn’t see that till later and thought it was going to be a nightmare getting the jam out of the moulds and working out how much more or less to put in… until I had a brainwave! One of the most marvellous things about the thermomix is the built in scale. So, I put the varoma basket on top, put one of the empty dariole moulds on it, and weighed it. Then I just put on the ones that I had put the jam into on the tray individually, and I could work out how much jam was in each. As it was, I had only put in about half as much as the recipe suggested, so I topped them all up.
The puddings rise quite a bit during the steaming, so don’t overfill the moulds. I did as suggested and topped them up to about three quarters full, and put the greaseproof paper (buttered) discs on top. I’d probably make them bigger than the beautifully cut out circles I did, as they looked lovely, but were hard to peel off! When I covered the moulds with the aluminium foil I covered some completely, and others I just covered the tops and pressed it in at the sides to about half the way down the side. Uses a lot less foil, and there was no discernible difference in the puddings.
Once you get the puddings out – they are very, very hot. So wear gloves or use tongs to get the foil off, or let them cool down while you are making the custard.
I had to run a knife around the inside of the moulds just to loosen them a bit, but they all came out beautifully (well, except one – that one was mine ;-))
The Custard
When I first looked at the recipe I thought 6 egg yolks was a huge amount! I’m quite a pavlova maker, so I always have lots of egg yolks left over and often freeze them…and then throw them out, as I can never find things I want to make that have egg yolks in them, so this was perfect! As I was thawing the egg yolks, I noticed they looked REALLY thick, and I wondered if I’d done something wrong. So I turned to google, and it turns out that when you freeze egg yolks, you need to add something to them to prevent them going thick and gooey when you defrost them…. who knew?!? Anyway, I am pleased to report that I used the unadulterated egg yolks in the custard and they worked just fine.
Check out this link if you want to see what you might be doing wrong when you’re freezing egg yolks! http://www.sunnyqueen.com.au/sunnyqueenrecipes/recipe.cfm?ID=31
Custard – good custard – is one of the best things about a thermomix! No stirring! And it comes out beautifully every single time. The thick custard in this recipe is lovely, I don’t recall ever making a custard with 6 egg yolks before, and I knew it would be rich, and it was. The vanilla extract I used (and I always use the paste if I haven’t got real vanilla beans to scrape out) left lovely little black vanilla specks all the way through the custard. Delicious!
I know the custard was good, because my son was just having some yoghurt now with his lunch, and he asked me for “more custard!”.
In the Mix Tricks 
