Note to Library Lady, 3/10/13 - I went to publish your comment that was in moderation and I think I must have deleted instead - and I hadn't even read it properly! :( You were saying that you think this recipe actually originated with someone in your family? Love to read the story if you'd have the patience to re-type!
I found myself wanting a comfort dessert tonight.
I had some fun plans for the weekend but they're all probably not going to happen now because I came down with a stupid cold yesterday. It wasn't bad enough to warrant staying home from work but it is bad enough to warrant not going up to CT to see TQ, or go to the pool, or anything. Sniff, boo hoo. Poor me.
Lucky for me, I'd made a big pot of chicken & duck soup recently, so at least I have good feed-a-cold dinner food, but for some reason tonight I was really craving something molassessy, like in the Indian pudding family. I pulled out Grandma J's All-New Fannie Farmer (circa 1959 & my personal motherlode - or grandmalode - of recipes full of comforting buttery goodness) and scanned the custards & puddings section while I had my soup. Naturally there was a recipe for Indian pudding. 2 in fact. But that stuff turns out to be a little more complicated & time consuming to make than I felt like dealing with - but on the next page over there was a beautifully simple recipe for something called Honeycomb Pudding, so I made that and it was just what this sniffly singleton wanted, the whole thing mixed up quick & not a lot of pots & pans to wash. Really perfect. And it came out kind of attractive, too, so I thought I'd do a Rosie-esque "Food Porn Friday">post.
Here is the screamingly simple recipe:
Set oven at 350 degrees fahrenheit (sorry, I thought for a second about translating for the rest of the planet, but I'm fading pretty quickly here)
Butter a 2-quart baking dish.
Mix
1 cup sugar
1 cup flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
Add
1 cup molasses (mmmmm, molasses...)
1/2 cup butter, melted in 1 cup lukewarm milk.
Beat thouroughly. Stir in
4 eggs
Pour into baking dish. Bake until firm (about 45 minutes).
I threw in some cinnamon and cloves, that was good, nutmeg & ginger would also go well, the recipe started with a suggestion of adding nuts, raisins or dates.
Nice thing for a single person is that the recipe halves beautifully; if you had a small enough baking dish you could even quarter it & that would be plenty. The recipe claims to serve 6, but it comes out very moist, rich and sweet and unless somebody had a seriously over-the-top sweet tooth, I think I could've served at least 4 people, maybe more, maybe even 6 if they'd had a good dinner, out of my half recipe. The recipe also suggested serving with lemon sauce or whipped cream & that WOULD be good, a nice tart lemon sauce or a totally unsweetened whipped cream would balance the sweetness nicely, but toppings were just way beyond tonight's ambition level.
Blogging about it, though, is not. I love simple recipes & I think I'll do this one again.
BTW, you can't quite make it out in the picture but it does end up with an interesting honeycomb-like effect going on in places.
14 comments:
When you mentioned this before iceboating recently the idea lodged in my head, and when we ended up with a snow day today I decided to try it out. OMG. Delicious. Perfect snow day food. Thank you for the recipe!
his is the same recipe that my mom used to make while we were growing up. It was my favorite dessert and she would make it for my birthday. She also made a sauce that she called “Flora Dora Sauce” . The recipe was as follows.
2 egg whites
½ to 1 cup confections sugar
2 egg yokes
½ tsp vanilla
8 oz heavy cream
Beat egg whites until stiff & half the sugar.
Without washing beater, beat yokes unti8l thick.
Add remaining sugar gradually.
Combine then fold in ½ pint of heavy cream & beat until stiff.
Hope you enjoy this addition.
Sounds yummy!! Perhaps the next grocery run will include some molasses. (And I'd opt for the half size too.)
I have been searching for the most original version of thes recipe and now I have found it!! Originally it came from the Fanny Farmer cookbook....an early version...my copy is in storage ergo the search! It is so yummy and I am hoping to make it today...I do top mine with pecans and serve with whip cream although the original recipe also suggests a lemon "flora dora" sauce. Thanks for posting the recipe!!
You're so welcome! You know, I actually have my OTHER grandmother's Fannie Farmer cookbook too - that one's circa 1935 and the Honeycomb Pudding was in there too. Just a wonderful recipe, isn't it?
Making this for my boyfriend who is from South Africa. Apparently it is made frequently there as a desert. He's super excited (as am I). Cross your fingers this comes out nicely. Oh, and we are adding some vanilla ice cream to it. :)
Fingers crossed! :D
Fingers crossed! :D
Just came across your post while trying to find a little background on this recipe. I've just been handed down handwritten family recipes recently and this one was included. It was titled "Aunt Minnie's Honeycomb Pudding". It also included the Flora Dora sauce mentioned in an earlier comment. Aunt Minnie was my great grandmother who died in 1924. Though I'm sure she was not the originator of the recipe, I do know that she raised her family in the 1880s and 90s, and think it is safe to assume she was using this recipe at that time based on the age of the cousin who had gotten the recipe from her.
Note to Library Lady, 3/10/13 - I went to publish your comment that was in moderation and I think I must have deleted instead - and I hadn't even read it properly! :( You were saying that you think this recipe actually originated with someone in your family? Love to read the story if you'd have the patience to re-type! I'm sorry, I love finding out more about things I've written about & I can't believe I accidentally bleeped yours!
Note to Library Lady, 3/15 - Hooray, your comment is back! I was so dissappointed (almost said "bummed out" but you're a LibraryLady so I will try to use proper English) when I hit whatever button it was I hit thinking I was publishing and suddenly it had vanished.
I've got an older version of the Fanny Farmer cookbook from my other grandmother. Grandma J's is the one I cook with, Grandma A's is quite fragile so it stays on a bookshelf. When I get home tonight, I'm going to have to see how old it is and whether the honeycomb pudding recipe was in the collection yet.
Nothing like old cookbooks. There's a booksale in Ithaca twice a year (May and October) and they will sometimes have the old ones. This sounds so easy.
This looks exactly like the Honeycomb pudding I have been eating most of my life (50 years) but the recipe from my grandmom is different as ours is a steamed pudding and doesn't use spices. I am fascinated by this recipe and will try it!!!!
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