Queen of Puddings

Queen of Puddings. What an amazing, hyperbolically beautiful description for a bowl of custard, jam and meringue. Seriously, you could knock it up in 5 minutes with shop bought meringue shells, a jar of Tesco Value Raspberry jam and a can of Birds Eye custard powder and most people probably wouldn't know any differently. But if that were the right way to do it, it would have a different name, wouldn't it. It'd be called something like an Eton Mess, only it can't be called that because that name's already been taken for a similar melange involving strawberries, cream and meringue, although basically the same concept. No, the Queen of Puddings has to have its custard, jam and meringue homemade in three separate components entirely from scratch, because the Queen of Puddings is about beautifully showy, colourful layers, which are carefully ordered and which bake in a disciplined shape. The wonder is that it isn't called the Queen Elizabeth of Puddings. I plan to attempt this pudding this evening, and already the possible variations are doing my head in. White breadcrumbs. What middle class family has white breadcrumbs readily available? Wholemeal is the pain du jour in our family, and it's been several decades since anyone with half a brain kept their stale white bread to feed to the ducks, as we all now know it gives the poor things the runs. Being Jewish has a certain advantage, particularly being Jewish and baking this creation so soon after Jewish New Year, as we have a surfeit of half eaten challah - eggy, chewy white bread used every festival and Sabbath as part of the ritual of welcoming the festival, and possessing a joy of its own to plait and bake - so these, more usually used to make a snobby version of chocolate bread and butter pudding, can be temporarily redeployed. And the jam? Easily procured from your local corner shop, but Mary Berry is uncompromising in her view that you should make her own. I am one of the world's multitasking professionals, but even I would struggle to stir raspberries and sugar without letting it burn, while making dinner for four and checking homework with the other. But then of course baking is never about the food. It is about the slow, mesmerising alchemic process, the hypnotic stirring, folding, whisking and processing, it is about the unmatchable satisfaction of creating combinations that smell, feel, look irresistable...ok, homemade jam it is, and the kids will just have to have fishfingers. A fabulous pudding will more than atone for a main course procured from the depths of the family freezer.