Stressed is desserts spelled backwards!

OH and I have a subscription to the Sydney Symphony Orchestra at the Opera House. It was our treat to ourselves and I have to say that it's a lovely way to spend a Friday evening. Another great bit of the evening is heading off to Circular Quay straight from work and meeting OH there....it's a bit like having a date! We take ourselves off to find a quick bite to eat before batons up at 8pm.

The other night we tried a little tapas bar in The Rocks (http://www.eatout-sydney.com.au/Inner-Sydney/The-Rocks/Restaurants/The-Vintage-Cafe.html) and it was really lovely. The food was really tasty and there was a guy playing some beautiful guitar music. Anyway, this is a long introduction to the title as on the wall of the bar was a plaque letting us know that stressed was dessert spelled backwards. After seeing that I just had to go home and try a new pudding!

I've done a few things from Tamasin's Weekend Food but this pudding just seemed to hit the mark for a winter pud.

Guards' Pudding

6oz wholemeal breadcrumbs

1oz self raising flour

3oz vanilla caster sugar

1 pot best strawberry jam, full of whole strawberries

3 eggs

4oz melted butter

1 tsp bicarbonate of soda

Grease a 2pt pudding dish. Mix the breadcrumbs together with the sifted flour and sugar in a large bowl. melt the jam gently and pour it into the bowl at the same time as the whisked eggs and melted butter. Stir together. Dissolve the bicarb in a little warm water and stir it into the pudding.

Pour into the pudding basin and seal with pleated foil and string. Place the pudding on a trivet then pour boiling water to come halfway up the sides of the pudding basin. Cover with a lid and simmer for 2 hours.

Turn out and serve with thick cream.

It was one of the simplest puddings to make but I did make some adjustments.

• I always divide the amount of sugar in half, no one ever seems to notice and it does save a few calories!
• I only had bog standard strawberry jam so used half and made the rest up with frozen strawberries.
• I made a coulis with the remaining frozen strawberries by blitzing them up with some icing sugar and lemon juice and poured it over the pudding just before serving.

What I ended up with was a really light and fruity pudding served with thick custard followed by some very empty plates and no stress!