Cottage Pudding with Warm Lemon Sauce

Cottage Pudding with Warm Lemon Sauce

There are certain recipes that have stood the test of time and taste that reside firmly planted in my heart. Most of those foods I relate to my beloved grandmother, whose humility and simplicity and generosity of heart  left an indelible picture of how a life of gratitude should be lived.  It was she whom I wanted to model myself after. Sadly, I've missed the mark by a mile but I'm still working on it.

The one thing I can do is make some of her recipes, which I do several times a year and it gives me time to reflect on our times together, standing in the kitchen of her tiny two-room house that was filled with so much love that it should've burst open like the wild, fragrant roses she kept in her garden.  I can still see her in a tired old bib apron that she would never toss out because it "still had some life in it" and saving her other aprons for Sunday best when we'd go to her house for dinner.

One of the first desserts I ever learned to make was cottage pudding with warm lemon sauce.  My grandmother had a Rumford Baking Powder cookbook, published in the early 1900's, and I think it was one of the two or three that she ever owned in her entire life.  I have it tucked away somewhere; the pages are yellow and crumbling, and it has to be handled ever so gently but this recipe was among them.  Even as a child I loved lemon, and that warm lemon sauce over the simplest of cakes was a glimpse into heaven, I think.  This particular recipe I found on the internet but it's as good as I remember.

Not sure why this is called cottage pudding.  I would serve it in a cottage; I would serve it in a palace.

COTTAGE PUDDING WITH WARM LEMON SAUCE

1/4 cup butter (one half stick butter)
3/4 cup sugar
1 large egg
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt (I reduced to 1/4 teaspoon because I use salted butter)

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup milk

LEMON SAUCE

1/2 cup sugar
2 tablespoons cornstarch
pinch of salt (about 1/8th teaspoon)
1 cup water
1/2 cup fresh lemon juice (about 2 large lemons)
1 tablespoon butter

Grease and flour and 8" x 8" baking pan.  Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.

FOR THE CAKE:
Cream butter in mixing bowl.  Gradually add sugar, mixing well.  Add egg, beat well.

Combine flour, baking powder and salt. Add as thirds, alternating with half the milk, beginning and ending with the flour mixture, mixing in between.  Add the vanilla, mix.

Pour into prepared pan and bake at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for 40 minutes or until toothpick tests clean.  Allow to cook in pan for ten minutes.  Remove from pan and allow to cool completely. Cut into 8 rectangles, 2" x 4" in size.

FOR THE SAUCE:
Combine the sugar, cornstarch, and salt in a saucepan and whisk to combine ingredients. Gradually add the water and lemon juice and whisk until smooth.  Cook over low heat, stirring constantly, until thickened, translucent.  Add butter and stir.  Use warm over cake.

COOK'S NOTES:  Cake keeps well for a couple of days and on its own it seems to be typically on the drier side; you definitely need the lemon sauce.  Lemon sauce seems to be best on the day it's made.  It will reheat but it's not really at its optimum.