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 suspect that Mr. Dowling deliberately ruined the puddings he made, purely so he could declare that they are crap. 🤔

My microwave syrup sponge is a firm family favourite!

Voted YANBU purely for the phrase "arrogant pudding prat". Well done.

@SnowflakeSmasher86 I make b&b pudding in a similar way and if I'm feeling utterly brazen I'll add a bit of whisky. Tastes lovely with the marmalade.

I love Tim Dowling’s weekly column, it’s usually the first thing I read on a Saturday.
i do think it’s a shame he got the ham roll poly wrong though, I’d like to have seen a decent version of it.

Are the liver sausage and blood pudding actually cooked into the rice pudding? Or just served with the rice pudding in the same bowl? Is it sweet (other than the raisins; I mean do they mix sugar into the milk like in UK rice pudding)?

I saw the title in part on the side bar and thought someone was being called an arrogant pudding. Pudding being a top insult, I think.

@Puffinshop "Did anyone else ever have apple charlotte? Like an apple crumble but bread with brown sugar on top instead of the crumble."

Ah yes Puffin, my mother used to make this with our own apples usually on a Sunday. I've seen pictures of the rice pudding concoction you speak of, I think they do something similar in Norway. I like rice pudding and I like black pudding but I'll definitely pass on them together.

He's American. They don't get English puddings. They don't understand out love of dried fruit in Christmas recipes either

Mum used to use the old be-ro recipe book for this and it would be a production line of us kids buttering stale white bread and chopping off the crusts, then into triangles.

laid out in the bowl, with regular sprinkles of raisins, then covered in a thin custard and sprinkled liberally with Demerara sugar for a good crispy top.

I honestly don't understand how he gets paid to just prattle on every week. It's not an interesting column and he doesn't have a take on anything. Last time I read it it was an endless stream of 'the boiler/dishwasher/window broke', 'the cat has an attitude', 'I was working in my shed and the tortoise followed me' or 'all my adult children have covid and have come to stay with me and my wife who are in our 60s'.

Just put in the bowl cold after cooking. The rice pudding itself is plain, no sugar during cooking, but the cinnamon is usually actually cinnamon sugar so it is sweet. It's nice if you leave out the liver sausage and blood pudding (and those are nice if served in a different way, it's just a terrible combo). My kids get served it for school dinners, the poor things.

I find articles like this completely tedious. There are plenty of competent cooks in the world without devoting any time or energy to incompetent ones.

I don't like any of those, and I can't stand custard, so I wouldn't be too sad if they never come up on any restaurant menu ever again 😂(or worst, when someone proudly brings one, all pleased with themselves, when you are invited for diner, and you have to congratulate them on their excellent pudding making skills and pretend it's a delicacy)

But not sure why they would disappear if people like making them at home

It’s not 100% condensed milk! One tin of Carnation and then top up with normal milk. And no added sugar. But the carnation makes it taste lovely and caramelised.

Regular readers of Tim Dowling will be well used to his near total incompetence over many facets of life. I would not take his advice on puddings.

Felicity Cloake, absolutely

Putting ham in it would explain why it tasted foul 🤣🤣🤣

I wonder if you could make a kind of savoury roly poly using ham, and perhaps grain mustard? (Obvs not cake,but pastry for the roly poly part[

But not sure why they would disappear if people like making them at home

I only make puddings on special occasions and then an apple crumble doesn't really seem to fit the bill. I think a lot of people have puddings for special meals and not everyday meals nowadays, and the old traditional British puddings are everyday kind of puddings to fill you up, not usually 'fancy' at all.

We had puddings every Sunday when I was a kid. We had a big cooking apple tree so it was mainly apple-based puddings to use them up, or other fruit from the garden. All credit to my mother for making them, but I find it's enough bother making the dinner itself. I'm not one of those people who particularly enjoy cooking as anything other than a means to an end, though. The thing is my mother isn't either, puddings were just more expected then. Her mother made one every day!

I read the article! I am someone who literally doesn't see the point in puddings. I am not a sweet fan at all, they just add expense and time onto a meal out and prefer to have just fruit. But the article was crazy - of course other people like them and want to have them. I wouldn't suggest 'banning them', just don't go for them myself.

It's up there with somebody on here calling Michael Bublé a 'slimy Christmas bastard' once.

One of my favourite insults of all time.

Ha! I knew right away what you'd read. `pudding Prat is hilarious.

Tim Dowling's schtick in his Guardian columnns is that he's a hopeless, inept, dopey American living here with his competent British wife, young adult children who view him as useless and a even pets who give him side-eye. If you aren't reading it with that filter it comes off a bit weird.

As for "banning" the puddings, the whole point was a lot of 'traditional' british puddings have fallen out of favour because their job was to fill us up with stodgy cheaply, and we don't eat like that anymore. So he was riffing on whether they would be worth saving. (I can't blame his with the suet ones, they are just too much)

Rice pudding - whoever cooks it - is the Devil's food. I would be quite happy for it to be outlawed 🤣

Normally I like Tim Dowling's pieces in the Grauniad but this one was utter crap, as DH and I agreed over breakfast.
Rice pudding is actually quite tricky unless you know what you're doing. ( I'm sure many mumsnetters are A/ very familiar with how to cook it, how it should look and taste or B/ have their own particular recipes and methods for making it which work.
I strongly suspect he used too much rice (perhaps because the amount specified in the recipe looked insufficient) and ended up with a dry, dull, stodgy mess.
It's deceptively simple, but you need lots of full cream milk, vanilla sugar or vanilla essence and/or grated nutmeg to experience its full glory. And definitely don't overcook it until it's dry!
As for the Sussex Pond Pudding (which recipe is probably now too late to save) it's a travesty, Mary Berry or not.
And God save us all from the over-sweet, sickly confections often masquerading as modern American desserts.

I didn't know people still made puddings. Other than the very occasional crumble I never make them, and never did when the dcs were small either. Ice cream now and again was the extent of my efforts.