THE INHERITANCE
GRANNIE’S LEMON PUDDING IS THE ONLY THING JENNY TAYLOR HAS FROM HER GRANDMOTHER – OR IS IT?
Jenny Taylor has a recipe for lemon pudding – her go-to dessert – passed down from her grannie, Jess.
any memories of her grandmother Jess Taylor, who died when Jenny wasn’t yet five. She’s not certain whether Jess had a reputation as being a good cook, and almost all of her grandmother’s culinary repertoire has been lost to time.
But she does have this recipe – a creamy, zingy pudding that’s a staple of Jenny’s cooking. “It was cooked in the Rayburn – well, everything was,” says Jenny, who lives in Summerhill, Tasmania. And if you’ve ever tried to cook in a Rayburn, you’ll know that it’s no mean feat to master the art of baking in one, sensitive as cakes and puddings often are to temperature and timing. This recipe, however, is a good-natured one, says the 41-year-old. “It’s delicious regardless of the oven temperature – it’s like a lemon meringue pie but without the pastry.”
When Jenny and her dad visit her uncle, who lives nearby, for a simple family dinner, this lemon pudding is the first recipe she reaches for. “I’m better at that sort of cooking than I am at main meals,” she explains. “I make cakes and quiches and that sort of thing.” It’s popular, too, at the more celebratory family gatherings – weddings and Christmases, where it makes frequent appearances.
Perhaps her grandmother preferred making puddings too, and that’s why the recipe survived to be passed down? But if she doesn’t know much about Grannie Jess, Jenny does know a lot about the house Jess lived in. In fact, she sees it every time she visits her father, who is Grannie Jess’s son. He grew up in the house (as did Jenny herself) and still lives there today. The weatherboard home in Longford, northern Tasmania, just south of Launceston, has changed over the years, inevitably, gaining a few bedrooms, and losing a few acres of the dryland sheep farm that surrounds it. That farm is still operational, though: “They’ve got Corriedales now, but Grannie used to have English Leicester sheep,” she says.
So Jenny does know the house Jess lived in for decades, and she knows the recipe that Jess must have cooked so often, as well as the secret of baking it in that Rayburn stove that’s given three generations of her family such sterling service. And that’s quite an inheritance.
GRANNIE’S LEMON PUDDING
Serves 4-6
1 cup caster sugar, plus ½ cup extra 3 eggs, 2 separated
1 cup boiling water
2 lemons, rind grated and juiced ¼ cup cornflour cream or ice-cream, to serve
Preheat oven to 150°C. In a medium saucepan, whisk 1 whole egg and 2 egg yolks together with the boiling water. Add the lemon rind and juice.
Combine the cornflour with ½ cup cold water in a small jug, whisking thoroughly to eliminate lumps. Add to the pan with the egg mixture and cook, stirring over medium heat for 3 minutes or until mixture boils and thickens.
Pour into an shallow 4-cup (1 litre) ovenproof dish and cool.
Meanwhile, beat egg whites in a clean, dry medium bowl until soft peaks form. Gradually add extra sugar, beating well between additions until smooth and glossy. Spoon on top of the cooled lemon mixture.
Bake for 15 minutes or until lightly browned. Serve hot or cold with cream or ice-cream.