My take/attempt on a steamed pudding

After reading my post where I mentioned the CWA of Tasmania's 21st birthday cookbook, my dad surprised me by buying me a copy of my own! Plus another one 'The Country Women's Association Cook Book - seventy years in the kitchen' which is the newer (newest? Published in 2009) by the NSW branch. Needless to say I was pretty excited. I could now bone and truss and de feather a fowl if I needed to. (Seriously. Everything is in here.)

So what to make? Steamed pudding sounded good - and there's almost a whole chapter dedicated to them. Some specifically without eggs, and when I actually read through them most of them didn't have eggs anyway, so I chose the Treacle Steamed Pudding to have a go at. I've added/substituted things so I'm going to post my version up here.

Ginger Molasses vegan Steamed Pudding

Serves 4

Ingredients:

1 cup wholemeal plain flour (white is ok)

1 tsp bicarb soda

1 tsp salt

1 heaping tsp ground ginger

2 tbsp raw sugar (white ok - any granulated kind)

2 tbsp vegan margarine

1 tbsp blackstrap molasses

1 cup non dairy milk of choice (I used homemade soy)

1/2 cup currants

First, sift your flour, bicarb, salt and ginger into a mixing bowl. Don't forget to add back in the germ/bran if using wholemeal! Stir in the sugar and rub in the margarine until it resembles fine breadcrumbs.

Add the molasses and stir until well combined. Pour in non dairy milk and stir gently, then fold in the currants.

Pour into a pudding basin with lid, or use a bowl and cover it with greaseproof paper tied with string like I did (which is where the trouble began!*)

Find a saucepan that fits your bowl and put it in. Fill with water til about halfway up the covered bowl, put the saucepan lid on and bring to the boil. Steam/boil for two hours.

When ready (I stuck a skewer in and it came out semi-clean) turn out onto a plate and serve with custard or ice cream!

*Onto the trouble! I stupidly forgot to keep an eye on the boiling water level in the saucepan and of course it boiled dry. I decided to boil the kettle and re fill it. Yeah don't do that - I heard a CRACK and thought oh no it's smashed! My bowl is about as big as the saucepan so I couldn't see - I just ran a spoon around the outside of the bowl and encountered no cracks (apparently) so I left it.

When it was ready I took off the paper and saw this lovely great big hole! Luckily it was a nice clean break and there was no glass in my pudding. I did burn it though. Observe:

I wouldn't call it a 'failure' as such, since it was still edible, but it's a warning for next time!

Is a glass bowl on a gas stove a bad idea? Would it even make a difference if the stove was electric? Do pudding basins even exist anymore? What about silicon? Any suggestions? Hahaha.

All the bowl smashing and burning aside, it's pretty damn good if I do say so myself. Which I do.