Culture

This week Critic is lucky enough to have a guest contributor - Laura Vincent of popular food blog hungryandfrozen.blogspot.com. Laura started food blogging when she was a broke student, so she understands the pain of loving butter but having no money. Check out her blog for other delicious recipes like this one, including plenty of vegan and gluten free recipes. Critic is a big fan. Thanks Laura!

My parents never bought magazines, but occasionally Nanna or another family member would reward me with a stack of their rejects, which I would then carefully go through, ripping out recipes that appealed. I was fairly pragmatic, choosing not just recipes that I could make immediately, but also looking for those with future potential. The following is a recipe I adapted from an Australian Women's Weekly, torn from its pages in 2003, but finally attempted now, eight years later.
 
For a while when I was growing up, we didn't have an oven, only a microwave and an electric frying pan, the two least cool appliances (I've seen opshops with signs saying "no microwave cookbooks accepted"). However, we still managed to have pudding, made in a gratifyingly swift manner with a zap in the microwave. One of my favorites was the fruit sponge pudding - canned peaches topped with a buttery dense sponge. Winter is the time when I need puddings the most. They can cheer up the grimmest evening and even the dampest, coldest flat is rendered a haven of warmth.
 
This recipe appeals to me because of its small quantities of ingredients - only four tablespoons of flour! - and its lack of dairy product. While I absolutely love butter, its alarming price trajectory has made me seek out more recipes that don't need it.
 
Peach Sponge Pudding
 
Adapted from an Australian Women's Weekly recipe.
 
Note: use whichever kind of canned fruit you like, I just love peaches. Pears would also be awesome.
 
2 cans peaches, drained
1/2 cup reserved peach can juice
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 eggs
4 tablespoons flour
2 tablespoons cornflour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
 
Set your oven to 180 C. You will need a smallish casserole dish for this recipe - I find a glass loaf tin ideal.
 
Gently heat the peaches, the reserved 1/2 cup juice, and the cinnamon and vanilla in a pan till the juice is hot and bubbling. Transfer all this to your dish, and set aside.
 
Beat the eggs thoroughly till thick, then add the sugar and continue to whip until they're pale and creamy. Electric beaters would be ideal, not having one, I used a whisk. It's a deep burn in the upper arms, but the price is right.
 
Sift in dry ingredients, carefully mixing together. Pour and spatula this mixture over the hot dish of peaches, and bake for around 30 minutes.
 
Serves 3-ish. With ice cream on the side, could definitely stretch to four serves.
 
This is excellent winter comfort food: hot, fragrant fruit; soft, cakey sponge. The cornflour makes this sponge far puffier and lighter than any of the puddings of my youth and the cinnamon adds delicious warmth, but you can leave it and the vanilla out if you don't have it, or replace with something else. Ground ginger would probably be lovely. Whatever you do, it's perfect as is, but even more perfect with ice cream, cream, yoghurt, or plain milk to slowly absorb into the sponge topping.