A pudding

After twenty years of baking this decadent dessert, which I’ve called by a name I’m quite fond of, I must finally, if fleetingly, commit to its spelling. I’ll take its lovely, ambiguous, oral name, so full of interpretation, possibility, and nuance, and relegate it to a finite, deficient, inadequate written one which prevents the mind from wandering.

Malva pudding; weekly mail pudding
A Malvalous dessert.

Twenty years ago (wow!) Bob and I took a one-year contract in South Africa. We were given an apartment with two servants, a cat, and pesky baboons (another story), and a rudimentary kitchen. At some point I started baking a dessert recipe that I found in the local alternative newspaper, The Weekly Mail. Part of a flour ad, the recipe had a dull, generic name, something like Snowflake Flour Pudding, or Baked Apricot Pudding. I’ve called it Weekly Mail Pudding ever since but, not having written of it, I’ve never had to spell it. I’m sad that I must now, in order to tell the story of the pudding. Bob and I refer to it so casually that, when I serve it to friends, I forget how odd the name sounds.

Malva pudding; weekly mail pudding
Carmelized comfort.

Malva Pudding

That was the first third of the story. The third third is the recipe itself, at the end. The second third is this. A few months ago in Cape Town, I suddenly came to realize that this dessert is properly called Malva Pudding, and is a South African classic of Dutch origin. (I should also mention that pudding is a generic British term for dessert. This one is a moist cake; not at all a custardy pudding.)

Bob and I stopped at a Cape Town cafe for coffee. I sat down and opened the laptop while Bob looked at the treats on offer. He returned to the table with a gorgeous little cake, not much bigger than a muffin. Its deep brown, shiny surface had large pores and a little buttery froth, like an over-tanned face with a smudge of Coppertone. The cake was not decorated or garnished. It looked moist, and smelled like toasty caramel. Makes my mouth water just thinking of it, even now.

“What’s that?” I asked Bob.

“I don’t know, it just looked good,” he said.

“Looks like Weekly Mail Pudding,” I said.

One bite confirmed it. Examining the cafe’s display case, I saw that the cake was labeled Malva Pudding.

Subsequent research indicates that apricot jam is one of the dessert’s defining characteristics. I never sense much flavor from the jam. Therefore, I’ve always used whatever jam I have on hand: ginger, orange, raspberry…. I used pomegranate jam in the one pictured here.

I give you my scrumptious version of this recipe on the conditions that, if you call it anything at all, you call it by its lovely, ambiguous name; that you refrain from writing its name; and that you forget any spelling of the name that you’ve seen here.

The recipe:

Weekly Mail Pudding

    1 Egg
    1/2 cup sugar (125 ml)
    2 T jam (25 ml)
    1 cup milk (250 ml)
    1 t baking soda (5ml)
    1/4 t salt (2 ml)
    1 cup CAKE flour* (250 ml) (or “self-rising” flour)

 

Directions

    1. Preheat oven to 350 F. (180 C)
    2. Butter a glass baking dish, at least 12″ x 7.5″x 2″. (18 x 30 x 5 cm) Preferably a little larger.
    3. Beat egg and sugar and salt together well.
    4. Add the jam and mix well.
    5. Mix the milk and baking soda together.
    6. Add flour and the milk mixture alternately to the egg mixture, beating well.
    7. Pour into the greased glass ovenproof dish.
    8. Cover the dish with a lid of foil.
    9. Bake for 40 minutes.
    10. Meanwhile, make the sauce.

 

Sauce

    1 cup milk (250 ml)
    1/2 cup water (125 ml)
    1 cup sugar (250 ml)
    4 oz. butter (125 g)
    1 t vanilla (optional) (5 ml)

 

Directions

    1. Place all ingredients together in a saucepan. (Use a large enough pan; say 2 quarts or 2 liters. Don’t walk away; it will boil over!)
    2. Stir until the sauce boils, to dissolve the sugar.
    3. Boil mixture for 5 minutes.
    4. Take the pudding out of the oven, uncover it, and stab it here and there with a knife.
    5. Slowly pour the boiled sauce over it.
    6. Return it to the oven, uncovered, for 15-20 minutes or until the pudding is brown.

You might serve the pudding with whipped cream, ice cream, or custard, but I think that’s overkill.

Cape Town's Table Mountain.
Cape Town’s Table Mountain.

Kitchen notes:

    •No cake flour? From 1 cup all purpose flour, subtract 2 T of it. Add 2 T corn starch.
    •Yes! you can use soy milk instead of dairy!
    •Placing a sheet of foil on the oven floor may save a nasty clean-up.

All text & photos © copyright 2008-present. All rights reserved. Bambi Vincent

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3 Comments

  1. Thanks, Fairlyhyperman, I’ll definitely try your rich version! And I have fond memories of Amarula Cream drunk in South Africa—not to mention amarulas snagged from the clutches of elephants and warthogs (picked from the ground) and eaten on safari.

    Bar: I have a cookbook in progress! It includes “deep dinner”: all components from beneath the surface of the earth.

  2. Do you have lots of recipes like this? You could publish a book of your favorite recipes from everywhere.

    You may send my free copy to the CS department at UNM. 😉

  3. As an ex-pat South African living in the US, I make malva pudding for my Yank friends all the time (it’s one of the few ZA dishes they’ll actually eat twice 🙂 You haven’t lived until you’ve tried this version though:

    Miller-Howe Malva
    Ingredients
    8oz caster sugar
    1tbsp apricot jam
    4oz plain flour
    Pinch of salt
    1/2 tsp malt vinegar
    1 egg
    7 1/2 fl oz full fat milk
    1tsp bicarbonate of soda
    1 tablespoon melted butter

    For the sauce topping:
    1 1/2 oz butter
    2 1/2 oz double cream
    2 1/2 oz castor sugar
    1/4 pint brandy and Bailey’s Irish cream (or Amarula Cream if you can get it) mixed

    Method
    Preheat the oven to 180°C
    Lightly butter an ovenproof dish approx 7″ x 5″ and 2″ deep.
    Whisk the sugar, egg and jam together in a warmed bowl until light and fluffy.
    Slowly add the milk beating all the time, then fold in the sieved flour, bicarbonate and salt.
    When well mixed add the warm melted butter and vinegar.
    Pour into the prepared dish and cover with foil and bake for 1 1/4 hours.
    Make the sauce topping and pour over pudding when it is cooked leaving to soak in for about 10 minutes before serving with whipped cream or thin custard (for true decadence).
    Serves 4


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