This recipe is very special to me as it was served at our wedding reception over 20 years ago. Neil and I were married in the Lutheran Church in Assagay Hillcrest and our reception was at the Valley View Restaurant (which is now called Intaba View). I can’t remember the name of the guy that owned the restaurant then but he helped us choose a simple buffet menu as we had a very tight budget. One of the puddings we chose was Malva pudding. Sometime after the wedding there was an article in the local paper on the restaurant and it included some of the recipes for dishes they made. I was so thrilled to see the recipe for Malva pudding and it is the recipe that I use to make it to this day.
250ml flour
5ml bicarb
20ml apricot jam
20ml butter
250ml sugar
5ml vinegar
1 egg
Cream butter, sugar and add egg. Slowly add bicarb, jam and vinegar. Gradually add the flour and milk. Bake at 180C for 30-40 minutes.
125ml butter
125ml sugar
125ml boiling water
250ml milk
5ml vanilla essence
Boil together and pour over the hot pudding as soon as it comes from the oven.
I measure out all ingredients at the same time – so I have two bowls in front of me. One is the plastic mixing bowl and a glass bowl for the syrup. As I go along in the recipe I add the required amount to the correct bowl. The only item I leave out is the boiling water for the syrup as I add that only when I need to boil up the syrup.
The cooking time is a guideline so I usually set it for 35 minutes and then see if it needs more.
Make sure you stir up the syrup ingredients after adding the boiling water. Watch very carefully if you boil up the mixture in the microwave as it can very easily boil over.
Make sure your co-ordinate the boiling up of the syrup so that it is ready to be poured over the hot pudding once it is cooked.
After the syrup is poured over I use a knife to poke holes in the pudding so that the syrup can soak in.
This is a very easy and extremely delicious pudding. I serve it with homemade custard and it also tastes great with cream.
Malva Pudding with the syrup still soaking in |