IT'S THAT GINGER PUDDING AGAIN

Whoops - my ultimate steamed ginger pudding seems to have caused a few problems, writes Simon Hopkinson. The quantities of baking powder and bicarbonate of soda should have been teaspoons not tablespoons. But it's worth mentioning that whenever spoonfuls are specified, I use rounded not heaped.

Ingredients: 110g (4oz) plain flour

110g (4oz) suet

110g (4oz) fresh breadcrumbs

1/2tbs ground ginger

1/2tbs mixed spice

1tsp baking powder

1tsp bicarbonate of soda

175g (6oz) preserved stem ginger, coarsely chopped, plus 2 or 3tbs ginger syrup from the jar

225g (8oz) golden syrup

275ml (1/2 pint) milk

1 egg

pinch of salt

butter

Preparation: Mix together the 7 dry ingredients in a bowl. Warm the milk and stem ginger with its syrup and beat into the dry ingredients together with the egg. Add the salt and mix well.

Grease a 2-pint pudding basin with butter and pour into it about half of the syrup, adding the remainder to the pudding mixture. Then move the bowl around, so that the syrup travels up the sides. This gives an all- round golden coating to the pudding.

Now quickly add the pudding mixture (so that the hanging syrup does not run back again), cover with buttered foil and then steam for 2 hours. Serve with very cold thick cream.