Surprise sponge pudding

I love surprises, who doesn’t?
This old-fashioned dessert is an all round winner. Not only is it popular with everyone in our family, it also features in the charity cookery book Pie in the Sky.
The recipe, a self saucing lemon sponge was submitted by my mother for this fundraising cookery book to support the East Anglian Air Ambulance in 2010.

The first section is for the generously donated recipes from some celebrities oa the hairy bikers thus using the same formula as here. Another section is dedicated to the local people, in form of a competition, entrants were encouraged to come up with a dessert using local produce, and lastly recipes were collected from the local chefs of some of the best eating places in the East Anglian region.
My mother was a lucky prize winner receiving a copy of the book containing numerous delicious desserts. A couple of months later she was most surprised to see her entry featured in the local newspaper helping to promote sale of the book!
It has a very unusual method requiring boiling water to be poured over an uncooked sponge pudding! It yields a surprisingly good dessert- resulting in a light cake like topping and a 'surprise' tangy sauce. So good in fact, my mother and I cooked it two consecutive days during her recent stay with us! Not only is it delicious, it is also very easy to prepare, the ingredients easy to remember, and furthermore can be popped in the oven with a roast. The first day she prepared it in a round glass 18cm dish, the second day I largely prepared it, this time in an oblong dish 17 x 25cm.




Surprise Sponge Pudding

Base:
25gr soft butter
25gr soft brown sugar
juice and flesh of one lemon

Sponge Topping:
110gr butter
110gr caster sugar
110 gr self raising flour, sifted (I used plain flour with 1 1/2 tsp baking powder)
zest of one lemon
full cream milk (I needed about 2 tbsp)

to serve, plenty of cream

Method:

Take an oblong ovenproof dish and grease well.
Preheat oven to 180c.
Dot the butter over the dish, sprinkle in the lemon juice and flesh as well as the brown sugar.
Fill an electric kettle and put on to boil.
Using an electric food mixer (or hand as I did) to make the sponge topping, beat together the butter and sugar until light and creamy. Next beat in the eggs a little at a time. add in the flour and zest, folding in well. Finally drizzle in sufficient milk until it becomes a thick dropping consistency.
Put spoonfuls of the topping over the base of the dish gently and level out. Slowly and very carefully pour over a half pint (240ml) of boiling water.
Cook for 30 minutes or until cooked- the top will look browned and bounce back when gently pushed. Served with your choice of fresh cream, perhaps clotted or Chantilly (whipped up with icing sugar).
Serves 6 dessert portions.