Steamed Cranberry Pudding

Steamed Cranberry Pudding sounds "not so good," doesn't it? Steamed pudding? With cranberries? And just LOOK at it, it looks like, gasp, FRUITCAKE:

Many years ago, a lovely friend of ours, Mary Ellen St. John, of Wenatchee, Washington, made this dessert. My mom pushed her slice around on her plate for several minutes, trying to get the courage to taste it. She had said something like, "Icky, this looks icky."

After taking a deep breath, Mom took a bite. And then another. Once finished, she asked Mary Ellen for another slice. And she said, "No, make your own." At least she did give us the recipe and it's now a staple in our holiday baking. We had it for our Christmas Dinner Dessert this year for the umpteenth time.

That "icky" response is generally the one we get when we make this and people see it for the first time. It does look like fruitcake, which is not the favorite of a majority of people, if my unscientific poll is even close to the truth.

But one taste of this usually means that people are asking for more. They also tend to lick their plate when they think no one is looking.

The recipe is incredibly easy. And I hope you let me know if you liked it.

Cranberry Pudding

Ann Morrow from Mary Ellen St. John

PUDDING:

1 1/3  Flour

2 tsp baking soda

1/3 cup hot water

½ cup molasses (light or dark, whatever you have on hand)

2 cups whole RAW cranberries

SIFT flour and soda together

ADD hot water and molasses

ADD RAW cranberries

POUR (batter is REALLY stiff) into one greased LOAF pan

SEAL with tinfoil @@@

BAKE at 350 for 1 hour

SAUCE:

½ cup butter

1 tsp vanilla or other flavoring (rum, or ?)

½ cup evaporated milk

1/3 cup sugar

HEAT all just until butter melts---***DO NOT BOIL!!!

SLICE pudding (warm or cold) into half inch thick slabs and spoon sauce over it.

REALLY YUMMY!!!! 

Two pieces is the normal serving ;)

@@@This is very important. The pudding needs the foil to keep the STEAM in. One of my aunts made it and didn't do this step. She told my mom that it turned out horribly.

***This is another important step. Boiling makes the sauce totally weird. Just heat it until the butter is melted, that's all. 






My hubs will eat a slice, but since there's no chocolate, he'd rather pass. But I'm giving this a FIVE CHERRY Rating anyway, because the rest of is like it enough for him:

Easy Butter Shortbread

The Christmas baking has begun. Bethany needed several large cookies for gifts for the second year radiography class. They've been very helpful to the first years. These are really easy...and so good! I've had this recipe for years. Can't even remember where we got it.

Easy Butter Shortbread

1 cup butter

2/3 cup powdered sugar

2 teaspoons vanilla

2-2 1/4 cup flour

1/8 teaspoon salt

PREHEAT oven to 350 degrees.  In a medium mixing bowl CREAM butter, sugar and vanilla.  ADD two cups flour and salt and MIX until dough is smooth.  If dough feels sticky ADD additional 1/4 cup flour as needed.  Dough should be soft but not sticky.  ROLL into 1" balls and place on ungreased cookie sheet.  BRUSH cookie press lightly with vegetable oil.  PRESS dough with desired cookie presses.  BAKE 10-12 minutes or until golden brown.  COOL 5 minutes on sheet, COOL completely on rack.

Makes 2-3 dozen…and I ALWAYS make a double batch!

After you oil the press, be sure and dip it in sugar to keep it from sticking to the cookie dough. You can use plain white sugar or colored crystals.

When we double the recipe, we use 1 Tbl Vanilla and 1 tsp Almond flavoring

When we made them today, I rolled short logs that were about 1.5 inches thick by about 8 inches long in wax paper. Then Bethany and I rolled the logs in multi-colored sprinkles. We then sliced them into 1/2 inch discs. THEN we squished them with an assortment of cookie presses. They were quite colorful! You can see the sliced discs, along with the presses, here: