ELLY McCAUSLAND gets saucy for winter

It’s definitely the weather for a steamed pudding, and this is one of my favourites, adapted from Diana Henry’s wonderful winter cookbook, Roast Figs Sugar Snow. There’s nothing fancy about this mixture of sweet apples, tangy marmalade and fiery ginger. It's hot and sticky and syrupy, but it will bolster and comfort you like nothing else on a cold evening. It’s very easy to whip up, and a pan of boiling water does all the cooking for you while you settle down with a glass of mulled wine by the fire. It’s almost enough to make you love winter.

Steamed apple and marmalade sponge pudding (serves 4):

75g caster sugar

75g butter, at room temperature

1 large egg

40g self-raising flour

½ tsp ground ginger

200g cooking apples, peeled, cored and cut into 2cm cubes

A pinch of salt

30g breadcrumbs (I used sourdough)

3-4 tbsp milk

3 tbsp orange marmalade

1 tbsp golden syrup

Lightly grease a one-pint pudding basin with butter. Cream the butter and sugar together until fluffy, then add the egg and mix again. Fold in the ginger, flour and apples, then the salt and breadcrumbs. Add enough milk to make a thick but pourable batter.

Put the marmalade and golden syrup in the bottom of the pudding basin. Pour in the sponge mix. Cover with buttered foil, pleated in the middle, and tie this tightly around the rim of the basin with string (find instructions on the internet for steaming a pudding, if you need to). Thread another piece of string through this, on each side of the basin, to make a handle.

Find a large-lidded pan that will fit the pudding basin in it. Scrunch up a piece of foil and put the basin on top of this in the pan. Pour in enough boiling water to cover the basin up to the bottom of the foil tied round it, then put the lid on. Simmer for 1 hour 10 minutes, leave to rest for 5 minutes, then remove the foil, put a plate over the basin and turn out the pudding.

Read more of Elly's recipes on her blog: nutmegsseven.co.uk