This is my Grandmothers recipe, it is delicious and comes out as a round pudding. "Clootie" is Scottish for cloth. The dumpling is cooked in the cloth and is specially prepared. Heres how:
Prepare your Cloth:
Soak a piece of Cotton fabric (a large square) in water and squeeze out till there are no water drips. Place 4 large tablespoons of Plain Flour in the middle of the wet cloth and rub the flour over the cloth, this forms a skin on your pudding
Pudding Recipe:
1 Cup of the following ingredients
Plain Flour
Currants
Sultanas
Grated Carrot
1 Grated apple - skin removed
1 Teaspoon Mixed Spice or more if you like spicy
1 teaspoon Cinnimon or more
1/2 teaspoon Ginger
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1/2 cup of Suet
2 Eggs Beaten
1 Teaspoon Baking Powder
Milk to mix
Place everything in a bowl except milk. Mix to a fairly stiff dough adding milk as necessary. Use your hands to form into a ball and place in the middle of your cloth.
Bring the 4 corners together and then, leaving enough room for the pudding to expand tie a string around the top tightly. Leave enough string around the top to be able to get hold of the pudding to bring it out of the pan when ready.
Place a saucer in the bottom of a Large Pan, place pudding on the saucer and fill your pan up with boiling water till it is half way up the pudding.
bring to boil and simmer for 2 1/2 hours. DO NOT let it boil dry but keep topping up with Boiling water to the original level (1/2 way up your pudding).
Warm your oven up to around 150 C.When the time is up. Take pudding out of the pan and unwrap it, be careful it is hot. place on a plate and put in oven, just long enough to dry up the outside of the pudding about 20 mins.
Serve with custard, cream or brandy butter.
Its gorgeous hot, but can be served the next day and traditionally in Scotland it is fried with the eggs and bacon in the morning. You can actually buy the pudding in the butcher shops in Scotland.
If you donīt like that idea, sprinkle with sugar and warm in the microwave for 1 minute and serve with your custard.
I hope some of you will try this, especially those with Scottish ancestery and I know there may be 1 or 2 Americans who qualify for this.
This really is a very old recipe and my Grandma always made it for my Birthday as well, I love it.
ENJOY
Elle