Classic British Summer Pudding

July 13, 2019 by Cynthia 41 Comments

Summer Pudding is a classic British dessert. It’s a delightfully delicious way to use summer’s fresh berries.

Classic British Summer Pudding.

The year and a half I spent in London, I worked at a couple of different places. Nearly every Saturday I would take the tube from my flat just off Sloane Square, to Wimbledon, where the catering company I worked for was located. We did a lot of weddings and I would spend the morning helping cook whatever food we hadn’t prepared the night before. Then I’d finish making the summer pudding desserts that we would be serving as an alternate dessert to the actual wedding cake. (This post was originally posted on August 3, 2011 and has been updated with nutritional information and contains affiliate links.)

What is a Summer Pudding?

If you’ve ever seen or had a traditional British wedding cake, you need a chisel and hammer to break through the royal icing. It dries rock hard, to protect the fruit cake that is below the surface. The word “pudding” in Britain has a completely different meaning than it does in the United States. Pudding simply refers to any dessert, and it does not have to be custard based like it is in the US.

Summer pudding is just fruit cooked with a little sugar, poured into a bread lined mold, and refrigerated overnight.

We used empty, 5 pound sized coffee cans and round bowls to make the puddings. On Saturday mornings I would whip cream, sugar coat jewel-like red currants, and decorate the puddings. I’ve never seen red currants in any grocery store in Los Angeles, so I finish mine with more fresh berries. A traditional Summer Pudding is not covered in whipped cream, but since these were for weddings and other events, each one was decorated like a miniature cake.

While this is a super easy dessert to make, you do need to prepare it a day in advance. For my gluten and grain free friends, I reserve a portion of the cooked berries before filling the mold and serve with fresh whipped cream. While it sounds odd, stale bread is used as a base to hold the fruit. Surprisingly, you can’t actually taste the bread as it absorbs all the fruit and juices. Gluten free bread can be used as well!

Line bowl with sliced, trimmed bread. Fill with berries.

Line a 1 1/ to 2 quart bowl with sliced white bread, trimming to fit. Fill with fresh cooked berries. Top mold with additional bread to seal the “pudding”. Cover pudding and weight down with something heavy if you don’t have a traditional pudding basin. (You can see I don’t, so I use a disk from my food processor and heavy cans). Un-mold pudding on to a serving platter.

Use something heavy to weigh down pudding overnight. Place on a cookie sheet so it doesn’t drip all over the fridge.

Top with fresh whipped cream. I use a fork for the outside of the summer pudding, adding a few whipped cream swirls and a few more fresh berries.

Classic British summer pudding, topped with fresh whipped cream and berries.

Summer pudding with fresh whipped cream and berries.

Gluten and grain free version!

Whenever I make this dessert, I always make sure to save a bit of the fruit for an easy grain and gluten free dessert.

Cooked summer berries with fresh whipped cream makes a great Summer Pudding substitute for grain and gluten free friends.

Some of the items used in this post are available at my Amazon Affiliate store at no additional cost to you.