Off the Fork: The greatest thing since sliced bread

The irony was not lost on me. On July 4th, the anniversary of the day that my country declared independence from Great Britain, I was scouring the English countryside checking every menu, quizzing every cook and searching every cookbook I could find, in the thrall of Summer Pudding, a traditional English dessert of thin-sliced white bread soaked in berry juice. 

My research complete, I returned to the rebellious colony of New York and began turning out Summer Puddings, a dessert that depends on the juiciest, sweetest berries, such as the raspberries, gooseberries, blackberries and currants we have here in July.

First, I had to overcome my prejudice against white bread. Aside from really sweet ripe berries, the only other ingredient in Summer Pudding is plain white bread with the crusts cut off. Forget about crusty, homemade whole grain bread. This is the pre-sliced kind from the supermarket that comes in a plastic bag and has the texture of a sponge. And don’t be tempted to use sliced cake in this recipe; it will disintegrate.

Summer Pudding sometimes shows up on restaurant menus, but it’s really the province of the home cook. Since everyone I spoke to agreed that the definitive instructions for Summer Pudding were written by Elizabeth David in her 1955 book, Summer Cooking, I started there. My recipe makes use of the Independent American Berries that we have here on the East End in July, but any combination of berries will work, provided they give up several cups of juice once they are cooked a bit. You need plenty of juice to dip the bread in, and to pour over the assembled dish because, as Felicity Cloake wrote in The Guardian, “no one likes a patchy pudding.”

Traditional English Summer Pudding

Serves 4

Ingredients:

1 ½ pounds of summer berries; 1 pound of raspberries and 4 ounces of blackberries or substitute red currants or gooseberries for the blackberries if you prefer a little tartness.

Up to 4 ounces sugar, but taste the berries first because if they are really sweet, you may not need any.

½ loaf day-old white bread with the crusts cut off.

Whipped cream for topping.

A deep, one-quart bowl and a plate that will just fit inside it.

1. Combine the berries with the sugar in a saucepan, and heat just until the mixture begins to boil. Cook for 2 or 3 minutes.

2. Pour the still-warm cooked fruit into a strainer, catching all the juices in a bowl.

3. Line a one-quart bowl with two pieces of plastic wrap, allowing each piece to drape over the edges by a half inch. The plastic wrap will help you un-mold the pudding later.

4. Arrange the crust-less bread over the plastic wrap. Dip each piece in the reserved berry juice, and place the largest in the bottom of the bowl, with the rest arranged like a jigsaw puzzle around and up the sides. There should be no gaps.

5. Spoon the berries into the bread-lined bowl.

6. Cover the top of the berry mixture with more slices of white bread, dipping each piece in the berry juice first, and then overlapping so there are no gaps. Reserve about a cup of the juices, and spoon the rest over the pudding.

7. Place the plate on the top bread layer, and put a weight of two or three pounds on the plate to hold the bread layer down. A 38-ounce can will do the trick.

8. Refrigerate overnight, or for at least 12 hours.

9. When you are ready to serve the pudding, remove the plate, fold back the edges of the plastic wrap and gently turn the pudding over into a flat-bottomed serving dish with a lip to catch the juices that will flow out of it. Remove the plastic wrap.

10. Spoon on the reserved juice, especially if you have a patchy pudding.

11. Top each serving with a dollop of whipped cream.