Pudding Club night at Rivers Meet
Pudding lovers meet at Rivers Meet every three months for the Pudding Club, an evening where we celebrate puddings made with seasonal and organic produce.
Last night our guests indulged in five delicious, seasonal puddings that were freshly made in our kitchen a couple of hours prior to the event. We served:
Pumpkin pie and clotted cream;
Baked seasonal fruit with toffee;
Crab apple and damson sorbet;
Treacle pudding and custard;
Italian chocolate trifle.
The evening started with guests being welcomed inside and seated at their tables by Jo, the host and owner of RiversMeet. Half of the attendees are regulars so it wasn't hard to guess that, when guests started chatting and bringing the atmosphere to life.
Armed with a drink, each guest was excited to start the pudding tasting so we soon served the first course: Pumpkin pie with clotted cream.
Jo gave a brief introduction to last night's event by mentioning that each table had a score sheet which had to be filled by the end of the night for each pudding served. Then, Jo presented the guests with a freshly baked pumpkin pie that just came out of the oven. She knows how to build anticipation!
We quickly plated the food and served it to our pudding lovers. Whilst working the crowd, we couldn't help but eavesdrop when words like 'light' and 'pumpkinlicious' were used to describe our pie.
Our next course was: Baked seasonal fruit with toffee. Pieces of seasonal apple and pears, freshly picked from our friend's garden, were seasoned with cinnamon sugar and baked before they were served with a heavenly toffee sauce made in the kitchen. Needless to say, our guests described the pudding as 'moriesh, sweet and gorgeous, silky, sticky and yummy'.
Satisfying everyone's sweet tooth, it was high time for something refreshing to cleanse the palette. Our crab apple and damson sorbet was going to do the trick. A beautiful vivid colour made our pudding catch everyone's eye, but little did they know that the taste was actually the surprise element.
The 'tangy, tasty, tongue-kicking' sorbet was a hit among our guests. Everyone was surprised by its taste and the pudding definitely divided the crowd.
For our forth pudding, we decided to go with a crowd-pleaser, a traditional pudding that would guarantee the satisfaction of our guests: Treacle pudding with homemade custard.
We left it to our guests to describe the pudding: 'scrumptious, comforting, homely, delicious, subtle, perfect, moist, treacly & custardy'. We couldn't have said it better ourselves!
For the last pudding, we went for a classic: Italian chocolate trifle. Panettone base, mascarpone and vanilla cream, topped with chocolate custard, cream and chocolate flakes. Need we say more?
The night finished on a high note, with Jo announcing the winner of all five puddings. With a preference for seasonal and comforting taste, our guests decided that the pumpkin pie with clotted cream and the treacle pudding with homemade custard were the winners of our Autumn Pudding Club!
It was a pleasure to have all of you joining us last night in one of our favourite social meetings at Rivers Meet. We had a fantastic time and we hope our guests did as well (although we got small hints that they did).
We're already looking forward to our next Pudding Club which is on 20th January 2017. If you'd like to take part, book your place soon as you can imagine there are lots of pudding lovers out there!