Steamed Syrup Sponge Pudding

My son is a fan of a traditional pudding, (he's a middle aged man in a 6 year old's body.)  His favourite things include dishes like apple crumble, sponge puddings, lemon surprise pudding etc. Anyone who wants to steal his heart when he grows up just needs a traditional British recipe book!

In any case, I bought some syrup sponge puddings recently from the supermarket then after we both had one, agreed that I'd forgotten traditional British puddings are actually fantastic, I thought I'd try to make some myself.

Traditionally steamed puddings would be just that, steamed over a pan of water for a long time but this is where a microwave comes in and works a treat.  Obviously you must use microwave safe cooking bowls.  I saved them from the puddings I bought but ceramic ones would also work (but would be harder to turn out, butter them well.)

I've used a slightly different conversion for the weights this time, both will work but use either ounces or grams don't mix between the two!

Steamed Syrup Sponge Puddings - Makes 2-3 but reheat well

Ingredients

50g, 2oz Margarine
50g, 2oz Vanilla caster sugar (or ordinary caster sugar) see tip below*
50g, 2oz Self raising flour (or plain / all purpose flour and 1 tsp baking powder)
1/2 tsp Baking powder
1 egg
2 tbsp milk
1 large tsp Golden Syrup per bowl

Method

If you have small, flexible pudding bowls, I've found you don't need to grease them but if unsure then grease your bowls with some butter.  Put a large tsp golden syrup in the base of each.

Cream the margarine and sugar together, I tend to use an electric mixer.  Add the egg and whisk in.  Then add the flour and baking powder and whisk in followed by the milk.

Carefully spoon the cake batter on top of the syrup into each bowl until they are all even.

Cook all in the microwave at the same time for about 3 minutes or until cooked through (use a knife to check if liked as you would for a cake in the oven).

Either serve immediately, turned out onto a plate or bowl or equally good warm rather than hot, great with pouring cream.  Also reheat well in the microwave for approx 30 seconds.

* I make my own vanilla sugar by saving used vanilla pods (where I've scraped out the seeds) putting them into a clean jar and filling up with caster sugar.  You can also keep refilling this and the flavour gets into the sugar again and again for a surprisingly long time.