To be angry at this arrogant pudding prat!

[BigHouseLittleHouse]

Article on Guardian today by a snide journalist wondering if we should abandon traditional puddings.

AIBU to find this article very aggravating? A bad cook blaming his incompetency on the recipes. He lost me at jam roly-poly which if made well (using a high-fruit content home made jam) is a clever dessert - the sweetness compensated well by a creamy vanilla custard (similar to the perfect ratio of fat and sugar represented by eating a jam donut).

By the time I got to rice pudding I felt positively violent. Rice pudding can be absolutely luxurious (as cooked by my neighbour) or it can be comforting and delicate (as cooked by my nutmeg-loving mother). How dare this pudding prat award only 3.5 to the taste of rice pudding? All he has done is evidence his pathetic inability to use his cook’s instinct to make a good version of a timeless classic.

If I asked my 7 year old to make these puddings they’d taste awful. That doesn’t mean the pudding itself is bad - just that the cook lacks skill.

Link:
www.theguardian.com/food/2025/sep/23/steam-stodge-suet-endangered-british-puddings-are-any-worth-saving

I think it's just Tim Dowling's style to be honest, he often writes sardonic stuff and riffs on the fact that it's because he is an American living in England.

Edited to say I've not voted by the way, because YANBU to dislike his style, but equally he is NBU to have a style that gets him column inches and pays his mortgage!

I read that article.

"I have cooked these desserts badly. Ban them"

Is it a satire on cancel culture?

A good rice pudding is a thing of the gods. Warm, comforting like a hug in a bowl. It warms you up from the inside out and smells and feels like childhood to me.

i can’t eat the bloody stuff now thanks to diabetes but i will not have it besmirched!

Sticky toffee pudding.. unless JK Rowling makes it obviously.

I think you’ve misunderstood the intention of the article.

I think he can’t cook, they all looked spectacularly bad. However, if he can sell articles based around not being able to make simple (delicious) puddings - good luck to him.

Just trying to decide which to make for dinner.

I read this article last night and I just knew that 'pudding prat' would be about this!
I really want a jam rolypoly right now.

just checking the cupboard for suet - that’s what i fancy too.

Don't read his articles any more. He is one of the reasons I didn't bother renewing my subscription to the Guardian.

It's obviously tongue in cheek, I thought it was a fun article and gave me ideas of some new puddings to try.

My mum used to bake her roly poly. It was the stuff of legend. I read the article. I’m not a fan of steamed suet sponges either. Steamed cake sponges are fine. I like Tim’s writing style, it’s self-deprecating and tongue-in-cheek.

No, seems more like you have

I don't know what he's on about. There IS no bad pudding, just ask my waistline.

(Basically, if you eat something hot out of the oven it tastes good, whatever it's made with).

The comment about currents was the final confirmation that not enough thought had gone into the whole project.

On the subject of not getting the brief, I thought Bake Off was weird last night.

Ahhh. Did I misread the intention? If it’s a riff on dumb Americans misunderstanding British cultural and food heritage, then yes I totally missed the joke. Oops.

It is tedious and hackneyed joke, though, since we have all complained about badly made school-dinner puddings for generations.

A better column would have said “cooks of the past must have been a heck of a lot better than me, as I did a crap job of cooking all of these puddings. Is it time to bin-off useless Americans who can’t cook for toffee?”

I stopped reading the Guardian as I am GC so I’ve never read this column before.

I badly want to attempt to make bread and butter pudding now. I’ve never come close to the confection my mother could create - it was so light and crispy on top and fruity and every bite was perfection. It was also fabulous cold. She only used Birds custard so I’ve no idea how she transformed it so wonderfully

Yeah Tim Dowling's whole thing is tongue-in-cheek 'American living in the UK and displaying incompetence about various aspects of daily and family life'. Don't know if he still does it but there was a weekly column running for years.

Tim Dowling has a great family life column that is one of the main reasons I do still dip into the guardian, despite being GC! I was infuriated by his incompetence at the pudding making, but he has never claimed to be much of a cook and I’m pretty sure it was in part an “American trying to do British thing” column - it’s a very personal view and he did say with eg the rice pudding that he doesn’t like it, but his wife does. It was upsetting how badly he made them, but he doesn’t usually write about food - it was def an “inexperienced person tries to do something” in my mind anyway.

Ahh - you said besmirch! I love that word.

My mum's rice pudding was to die for. Loads of nutmeg over the top and she also added sultanas to it and sometimes a bit of golden syrup. I remember her once serving it with strawberries and some cream. OMG.
I once worked in a guest house where I first had Queen of Puddings also delicious. My Dh will be your friend for life if you give him jam sponge and custard or anything with custard tbh.

To be honest, if my cooking looked as bad as his I’d be thinking about eradicating it too!

I was talking to my DM about this the other day, whether the current extortionate price of food might bring about the return of some of these puddings. They were essentially a cheap way of filling people up.

And frequently a way of using up stale bread. Queen of Puddings! That takes me back...

His photo of bread and butter pudding is an abomination!

I never put raisins on the top as they just burn, and the top layer of bread looks dry and overdone too.

I make marmalade sandwiches, cut them into triangles, butter the tips and put them pointy sides up in little rows. Adding the custard mix and letting it all soak for a bit before cooking makes sure it doesn’t go dry and the copious butter inside and out makes the crispy bread caramelise. If I put raisins in it then I sneak them inside the sandwiches, then they stay soft and squishy. I also make a chocolate orange version with dark chocolate chips and orange marmalade, or white chocolate chips and lemon marmalade.

I wonder if he used plain flour instead of SR looking at the state of his jam roly poly. Proper fluffy suet pudding is amazing!

Oh, that sounds absolutely amazing!