Ginger Pud with the Boys of Breaker Bay

Sunday night is a great night to eat casually (early) with friends to prepare for the week ahead. I recommend it. So Pav and I schlepped off to Breaker Bay to hang with our mates who love food, the fresher the better. Preferably straight out of the sea across the street. We're OK with that too, so we love hanging with these guys.

They're currently searching for Wellington's best chicken pate. I'll let you know what they decide. We had two to compare tonight. I'm not going to give away any brands, but suffice to say they've got a challenge ahead of them as comparing chicken pates is like comparing apples and tennis balls – same, same, but different.

Main course was lovely fresh blue cod and scallops with creamy leeks. Pav and I are fans of 'great ingredients not messed up' and this was certainly that.

I had promised a hearty pudding and had recently been to Ruth Pretty's cooking class at Handmade2001, so had Ruth's booklet to inspire me. Pav and I both love ginger in the extreme (Pav regularly doubles the ginger in his ginger baking, Legend) so it's easy to convince us on:

Upside Down Ginger Pudding

Because I can't leave well enough alone and I didn't have 12 guests (Ruth's recipe is for 13 servings) I made half of her recipe (what I made is set out below) and fed us all enough so we didn't need seconds. Anything you do like in this recipe is Ruth; anything you don't like is me:

Turn oven on to 190C. Put the kettle on.

• juice of 2 oranges (and finely grated zest of about half of one of them)
• half a cup of raisins (jumbo if you like, and I do)

Soak raisins in orange juice for half an hour and then drain.

• 3 pieces of stem ginger in syrup (I use Opies brand), finely chopped (more if you're keen)
• syrup from the jar (a trick I learned from Nigel Slater, who seems to love ginger too)
• 8-10 macadamia nuts toasted (about 7 mins at 180C, shake twice during toasting, remove from hot pan to cool as they continue to cook and burn quickly – don't leave the room while they cook!) and chopped
• golden syrup

Spray individual serving moulds for the number of people you have (I used 4 250ml cup coffee cups, but I reckon you could stretch to 6 or 7 with this amount) with nonstick spray and gloop about a tablespoon of golden syrup and a teaspoon of the ginger syrup in the bottom of each. More of each won't hurt. Then divide the nuts and ginger pieces between the moulds.

Now make the pudding batter.

• 50g butter, at room temperature, in chunks
• half a cup of brown sugar

Cream butter and sugar together until it changes to a lovely pale colour.

• 1 egg

Beat in the egg.

• 1 cup of flour
• 1 tablespoon of ground ginger
• half a teaspoon of baking powder
• pinch of salt

Shift all this together and add the drained raisins and orange zest.

• quarter cup of milk

Gently fold milk into batter.

Divide batter among the moulds, no more than about half full. Place in an oven tray and fill the oven tray with enough boiling water (remember the kettle from earlier?) to come about one third up the side of the moulds. Spray tin foil squares big enough to cover a mould and cover each mould with its own personal silver cap. Scrunch the foil around them so the batter has a chance to steam in its cap. Carefully transfer to the oven.

Bake for 20 mins or so until the skewer test shows they're cooked. Serve upended into bowls with cream or ice cream (we served with Spanish peach gelato, but that's another recipe).

Very sweet. And good and gingery. And I reckon it can be adapted to other flavours. My notes from Ruth's class say that they can be frozen in their moulds (immediately after pouring the batter) and then cooked from frozen for just a bit longer than the recipe says. Might try that sometime too.

Pottery and photo credit: Crown Lynn pottery from mid 1960’s designed by visiting Californian Dorothy Thorpe, pattern “Pine”. Supplied by the fish-guy of Breaker bay. Styled and lit by the architect of Breaker Bay.