This is Rose Prince's recipe for making her Black, white and redcurrant pudding:
I use the strained juice of cooked apples to sweeten this pudding, but if you fine it too sour, have some golden caster sugar ready to sprinkle to your taste. Use good quality bread that is one or two days old. Sliced and wrapped white bread becomes slimy when used in a summer pudding. You can also add seasonal fruits to summer pudding for variety: raspberries, tayberries, blackberries, red or black plums, rhubarb. Cut the latter two fruits into small pieces before cooking.
You will need 2 medium sized pudding basins – to serve 12
6 apples, chopped in to pieces, keeping core, pips and skin
1.5 kilos/3lb mixed black, white and redcurrants, de-stalked and washed
1 loaf white bread, the crusts cut off and sliced thinly
Cook the apples over a low heat, with 1 ½ mugs of water until soft; line a colander with a clean cloth and strain the juice. Put the juice (which should measure about 300ml/about ½ pint, back into the pan with the black, white and red currants, bring to the boil, turn down to a simmer and cook for about 5 minutes.
Line the pudding basins with the bread slices, placing a piece cut to fit on the bottom and fitting other pieces around the sides. Spoon in the blackcurrant mixture until it reaches the top. Put a slice of bread on the surface – it should cover it completely – and place a flat bottomed plate on top. Weigh down with a can of beans, or similar. Allow to cool, wipe the sides of the bowl of any drips and put in the fridge. Leave overnight.
To unmould the puddings, run a table knife down the sides to loosen. Place a serving dish – upside down – on top then invert. Shake the pudding a little. You should hear the pudding come out and land on the plate with a satisfying squelch.
Cut into slices and serve.
