Yesterday evening’s performance went very well (and then a pleasure to sit and enjoy the sounds of the Afropean Choir to round off the evening). However, today’s big event is the revealing of the results of my experiments in cooking spotted dick at the departmental Christmas lunch.

I have decided to keep things simple and will be offering up just bite-sized slices of my result rather than trying to do anything clever with tea-infused toppings. That simplifies the process of transporting and presenting the food, since I am not going straight from kitchen to table. The recipe I settled on was:

• 300g self-raising flour
• 150g fruit (mainly tea-soaked raisins and some currents to round it off, chopped together)
• 120g shredded vegetable suet
• 90g caster sugar
• pinch of salt
• lemon zest
• very strong tea with milk to bind the mixture.

I kept the dough fairly dry (enough liquid to stick but not to become sticky) and rolled it into a number of long sausages before wrapping in baking parchment and steaming. Steaming was a challenge but I managed it on a rack of the oven placed over a roasting tin full of water, with the parcels topped with foil to keep a lot of the steam in. A more enclosed container, probably steamed on the hob, would have  been better but I needed long, regular rolls for slicing.

I am pleased with the result although I think the zest of a whole lemon was too much and that has become a rather dominant flavour. The quantity above (ratio 10:5:4:3 for the main ingredients) would probably feed about 8-12 as a pudding with custard; I’m contributing it to a bring and share meal which might have a hundred or so guests.

I will be interested to see how it is received and, not least, to enjoy the home-cooking other colleagues have contributed.