We're going for a pudding today. Sorry, a dessert. This one was your mum's go-to recipe for special occasions (such as, say, you're hosting a safari supper for the WI, or Auntie Pat's coming for lunch and she always does chicken a la king and rice with peas in it so you've got standards to live up to).
As vintage recipes dictate, it looks pretty disgusting and is made of a strange array of things that you can find at the local corner shop. This one tastes of nostalgia, cheap booze and general delight - like Christmas in 1982. Hurrah!
Serves: Up to 8 people
Preparation time: 15 minutes to assemble, at least 1 hour to chill.
Ingredients:
1 packet of Gingernut biscuits (give or take a few, because you will obviously have eaten some already as they are the best biscuits ever).
300ml double cream
Some sherry (About a wine glass full. Apparently there are different types of sherry. This is news to me. I went with a cream sherry because it was only £4.99 in Aldi and this is clearly how I choose my alcohol)
Flaked almonds (to decorate)
Note: Some versions of this recipe suggest that you use half sherry and half orange juice. However, I am all for cramming as much alcohol into pudding as possible, so I didn't do that.
Method:
1. Assemble your ingredients and a plate in front of you. Pour the sherry into a dish. You want everything in easy reaching distance.
3. Dunk a gingernut into the sherry, slap a bit of cream on it, then do the same to another one and stick them together. Use a bit of cream to stick them to the plate to keep them upright. Refer to the picture below for a demonstration, ignoring the fucking CAT who is not allowed on the worktop.
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| Had to remove her from the table approx 20 times during this recipe, washing my hands after picking her up every time. She stank of sherry for the rest of the day. |
4. Continue until all of the gingernuts are on the plate, stuck together with cream.
5. Now smother your creation with cream, smoothing it over with a knife.
6. Sprinkle the 'log' (can we all agree not to use the word 'log' in a recipe again?) with flaked almonds and put in the fridge to chill for at least 1 hour. Over time, the biscuits soften and the whole thing turns into a sort of booze infused cakey roulade that you can slice and serve.
I could have left it there, but when reminiscing about this, someone told me that their mum used to use a leftover gingernut to make a face to stick on the front to turn it into a caterpillar (or, more ambitiously, Dougal from The Magic Roundabout). How cute would that be? I tried it. Not very cute at all as it happens. This boss-eyed beast will see you in your nightmares.
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| Do not serve to Auntie Pat. |
Just found this site and am loving it. I remember my Mum making this once for a dinner party mid 1970s, but she sandwiched the biscuits together with raspberry jam, then tipped the sherry carefully over the log and then covered with the cream. I remember it as being delicious, but then I am a 50s child & thought Vesta packet Chow Mein was the height of culinary sophistication.
ReplyDeletethat looks awesome
ReplyDeleteI used to make this! It wasn't half bad as long as you used copious, er, decent quantities of booze -- half sherry and half brandy, if I recall correctly. The other thing with it was that you had to slice it on the diagonal when serving it, to disguise the fact that it was basically a stack of gingernuts. Worked, too.
ReplyDeleteYou can't always avoid 'log' in some dishes -- Yule Log anyone?