to ask you for old fashioned school dinner pudding recipes?

[flyingspaghettimonster]

I am having a moment of nostalgia as I try to teach my British kids the delights of growing up in England in the 1980's... the poor buggers have ne concept of having dessert with their school lunch! And the US school lunches are utterly vile.

I want to make them warm shortcake with cherries in and lashings of custard, chocolate pud with choccy custard, cornflake tarts... what other great options do you remember, and any idea where I can find the recipes?

Drooling in anticipation...

Chocolate sponge with peppermint custard was my favourite

Did anyone else have date slices in school, they were thin rectangles of chopped dates with cornflakes and covered in chocolate?

Thanks for the butterscotch tart recipe upthread. God, I loved that at school and my mother could never reproduce it, although she tried. I was fed this in the early 60's, so it was a staple for many years. I also remember be something called 'melting moments' which was essentially a warm soft shortbread served with custard. Wasn't so keen on tapioca though.

Chocolate Crunch. Such an easy recipe to remember - 4, 3, 2, 1. 4oz plain flour, 3 oz sugar, 2oz melted butter, 1 Oz cocoa powder. Mix together and squish down flat in an oven proof tray. It will look very dry but that's fine! Bung in oven for 20 mins at 180 degrees. Serve immediately if you like it soft; let it dry for a bit if you like it hard.

In the late 70s/early 80s we had something called Gypsy Tart at school. There are plenty of recipes out there, but none quite the same - my memory is that it was dark brown caramel colour. I'd love a school dinner Gypsy Tart recipe if anyone has one.

My favourite was Gypsy tart, originated in Kent I think and created by a school cook. The main ingredients were brown sugar and condensed milk, (It could be the butterscotch tart mentioned by pp).

Apple crumble
Rhubarb crumble
Tapioca
Pineapple upside down cake
Jelly and ice cream
Treacle tart
Bread and butter pudding
Spotted dick
Syrup sponge
Flapjack

Might try out a few of these myself next week! I think it was the custard that made it. Also strawberries and nestle cream and Angel delight. I hated that but my brother loved it.

Oh yes, just remembered a pud which was apple puree, with a cornflake and golden syrup topping, with what appeared to be a soft marshmallow mix on top. That was lovely. The tart apples and the sweetness of the topping. Ooh, but I don't think I'd dare eat it now!

Pineapple upside down cake..

We used to have strawberry yogurt with homemade shortbread for dipping. That was yummy. That's the only thing I remember sadly.

Daughter has chocolate crunch most weeks at school. I cant remember it at all but will give the recipe a go to see if it triggers any flashbacks.

Ooh, pineapple upside-down cake. Do you have a recipe for that, Snowydaysaregreat?

@HeathRobinson

Grease a 7" cake tin.

Sprinkle bottom of tin liberally with brown sugar.
Place pineapple rings on top of sugar in a pretty way. Put glacé cherries in gaps.

Mix 2 eggs, 4oz s/r flour, 4oz sugar, 4oz marg and splash of milk.

Mix with hand mixer until combined then full speed for exactly 2 mins.

Mixture will be pale yellow and fluffy.

Put in tin carefully, don't ruin design.

Gas 4. 20 - 30 minutes until skewer comes out clean.

Let cool in tin for 10 minutes and turn onto plate.

This comes from my dear neighbour who is an amazing cake maker.

Thank you so much, LindaLa.

I’ve had staff catering at scout jamborees which is very much like school dinners for adults (and the only time I’ve ever been served shepherds pie with new potatoes on the side!) and I loved the warm sponge and custard. I remember one evening they’d run out of custard but no one would contemplate having their pudding without custard!

I find that sort of food very conforming!

I do miss cornflake tart though!

My face were stewed plums and custard or cherry pie which was just a layer of thick shortcrust pastry (with a raised edge of course) baked with cherries in a thick sugary sauce. It was probably from a giant tub of pie filling like you get at Bookers or something. So bad it's good!

Rockmysocks I'd forgotten all about the swirls of 'cream'! I know exactly what you mean but, alas, have no idea what it consists of

I know exactly what you are referring to but I don't know what it was. It was like Dream Topping but nicer than Dream Topping.

You lot were lucky!

Yoggitannabiscuit, that was probably our best.. bowl of strawberry yoghurt (not with actual strawberries in, it was a uniform pink, defo yog and not custard) and a big plain shortbread biscuit.

Custardannabiscuit - custard, either pink or green (mint) with a chocolate biscuit (shortbread with cocoa powder in it)..

Spotted dick and custard - 'all dick and not a lot of spot' as Victoria Wood once sang (unsurprisingly we went to school in the same town, and things don't change much in 20 odd years)..

Arctic roll.

Fruit salad (tinned) and cream.

Thats it, unless my memory deceives me, no cornflake tart or chocolate toothpaste or any such delights! is deprived

A perfectly cut cube of chocolate sponge about 2.5 inches on each side floating on slightly runnier than at home custard.

Yum!

Ignoring the subtitle this book is the best I've owned. The chocolate fudge cake is my favourite but the sticky toffee is amazing too.

Well they all went sideways. Apologies.

Sticky toffee from that book

I was at primary in the 70s in Kent/outer London.
Gypsy tart - not sure if this is the same as butterscotch tart but we always called it Gypsy tart. I saw from a PP above the name may be local to Kent, which I didn't know.
Banana custard - thick custard with slices of banana. The next day any left over would be cut into squares and served cold (I REALLY didn't like the cold version!)
Jam tart made in a big flat tray and served hot with custard. I think they did red, yellow and green jam and we called it "traffic lights" there was always a rush for the red jam tarts because it was rumoured the green ones had bogies in ;)
Stewed plums and custard. They left the stones in the plums and as a very small junior-age child I ate the stones too (one of the dinner ladies was quite fierce and used to send us back to our seats if we left any food).
Steamed syrup sponge and custard, yum yum. That was my favourite. I'm sure I also remember apple pie or apple crumble with custard.

Semolina with a big blob of raspberry jam! I forgot about the semolina!