A Symphony in Custard

Since I decided to cook everything in the Edmonds cookbook I have found that I view my free time less as an opportunity to socialise and more as an oportunity to cook. Friday night was going to be just such an occaision until a friend invited herself around. Still I decided not to waste the opportunity and made an apple sponge pudding with boiled custard (1).

I am not a huge fan of cooked fruit, never had been, I think I must have been about 15 before I first managed to politely choke down an apple crumble, well swamped in custard, while visiting a friends house for dinner. Still I enjoyed my apple sponge pudding. The custard was good – it was Edmonds custard powder plus an egg. I’m not sure that the egg added much more than an element of risk.

Sautrday morning was Omelette time. There are two Omelette recipes in the Edmonds.Unfortunately they are identical. I did make them both just to ensure they were identical. Which they were. These were puffy omelettes where the whites are beaten and folded into the yolks. The husband was less than impressed – he has a think about Edmonds feeling the need to make him eat air all the time after the puffy eggs. I can kind of see his point, they were a little light on substance.

We were off on a high seas adventure on Saturday (or motoring up and down the tamaki estuary) and sailing always requires scones. I made cheese scones, they were pretty good although I felt they could have been cheesier – surprising since I used a relatively strong cheese. The also required no butter, which meant no flour under my findernails, which made me happy. It’s the little things.

Post high seas adventure I decided that a pudding was required to go with our distinctly non-Edmonds egplant curry. I decided on steamed pudding, partially because it neccesitates custard and I love custard. Harlequin pudding is like marble cake – half chocolate half plain batter. It was a resounding success, best steamed pudding so far – nice and cakey like I had expected previous versions to be.

Boiled Custard (2) was a slightly less resounding success. Similar to boiled custard (1) but lacking in custard powder and hence relying entirely on egg for its thinkening. My lack of attention led to a slightly scrambled result, fortunately the husband either fails to notice or knows better than to comment.

While we were happily ensconced eating our pudding I thought it would be a shame to have an entire oven unoccipied so I whipped up the no-egg fruit cake from the baking powder section. It turned out to be quite sizeable and take somewhat longer than the suggested cooking time. As for palatability – I dropped it off to my Grandparents the next morning and I haven’t checked in to see how it is. I will let you know when I have feedback.