Needing a delicious dessert and a quick way to use up lots of plums? This easy self saucing plum pudding recipe is for you! Fresh or canned plums are perfect for this recipe.
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Why I Love This Recipe
- Comfort Food Classic: A warm cosy dish to serve at any time of the year!
- Saucy Surprise: A magical sauce forms underneath the sponge during baking. As the pudding bakes, the sauce thickens and becomes rich and velvety, creating an indulgent, custard-like layer at the bottom. It’s like two desserts in one—a cake and a sauce!
- Great for when you have lots of plums on hand: This recipe uses 14 plums which is a good handy amount if you have a tree that's raining plums. Alternatively you can also use canned plums.
About this pudding
This pudding features:
- A delicate, airy sponge with a perfectly crunchy top
- A soft and fluffy centre
- A gooey base that absorbs the rich plum sauce.
The tangy notes of the red and yellow plums marry with the sweetness of the sugar. I serve ours with a dollop of fresh cream, but it would also pair wonderfully with vanilla ice cream for an extra indulgence.
Inspiration for this recipe
I love plums! I am lucky to have a constant supply of plums in summer from both my parents and my in-laws. One summer I decided to make this easy self saucing plum pudding with the surplus plums. I'm so glad I did because I loved how it turned out and now this plum pudding features regularly in our house!
Before discovering plum self saucing pudding, I'd only ever made chocolate self saucing pudding and banana butterscotch pudding before, so I was intrigued to see how my experiment of this one would go. I was pleasantly surprised by the result and knew I had to share it here with you.
Ingredients
Only pantry staples are needed for this recipe (and plums of course).
- Flour: plain of all purpose
- Baking powder: helps the the sponge to rise and give it a fluffy texture
- White + brown sugar: both are need here. The white sugar is for the sponge and the brown sugar is needed for the sauce
- Salt: Only a pinch is needed but it helps to add flavour
- Butter: salted or unsalted is fine
- Egg: Helps to bind the mixture
- Milk: Helps to make the sponge moist
- Vanilla extract: for flavour
- Plums: Any variety of fresh or canned are fine to use!
- Hot water: Must be boiling hot to ensure the sauce thickens
See recipe card for quantities.
How to make Plum Self-Saucing Pudding:
This recipe couldn't be easier to put together!
- Preheat the oven to 180C (355F) (fan forced) and grease a 6-8 cup capacity, shallow oven-proof baking dish.
- Using the muffin method, whisk together all the dry ingredients together in a bowl.
- Combine all the wet ingredients in another bowl and mix until combined. Fold this into the dry mixture. Then fold in the plums until just combined.
- Sprinkle brown sugar over the plum pudding, then pour hot water over the back of a spoon all over the pudding. This ensures it is evenly distributed over the pudding.
- Bake for 35-40 minutes or until golden and bubbling.
- Serve with fresh cream or ice cream. So yummy!!
Hint: Serve any left overs for an indulgent breakfast the next day!
Variations
- Other fruit! If you don't have any plums on hand you can easily make this with any other soft fruit. My favourites include over ripe pears, apricots, nectarines berries, etc. Just be sure to cut larger fruit into small pieces. Aim for about 500g in weight.
- Chocolate - If you want an extra indulgent twist, you can add a handful of chopped dark chocolate to the batter for a bit of richness.
Equipment
I've had readers make this in a large, deep dish with not much success. Be sure to use a shallow baking dish for best results.
A note about the baking dish: Use a 6–8 cup shallow baking dish with plenty of room around the edges and avoid filling the dish more than about two-thirds full. For extra insurance, you could place the baking dish on a baking tray before putting it in the oven to catch any sauce that bubbles over. I've never experienced this pudding bubbling over in my oven however.
Storage
If you are lucky enough to have left overs, store in an air tight container in the fridge for up to 1 week.
What to serve alongside it
This pudding is great with cream, custard or ice cream!
FAQ
This could be due to:
1. Over baking
2. Not pouring the boiling water gently enough over the topping
3. Stirring after adding the water
It will still taste great. Just add extra custard, cream or ice cream to make up for it! Next time bake for 5 mins less and try to keep the batter and topping "layered" and not mixed together before baking.
This self saucing plum pudding is best served warm and fresh from the oven for maximum sauciness! If made in advance, the sauce thickens - still delicious though! Leftovers can be refrigerated and reheated gently in the microwave or oven. Delish!
Absolutely! Replace the plain flour with a good quality gluten free flour blend using a 1:1 ratio.
This helps the hot water to fall more gently on the plum sponge batter, slowing the impact and helping the water to disperse more evenly over the pudding. It's kinda my favourite part of the recipe as it feels novel and fun.
Your baking dish wasn't big enough to hold the batter and liquid whilst baking. Use a 6-8 cup capacity dish with plenty of room around the edges and avoid filling the dish more than about two-thirds full.
Related
Looking for other recipes like this? Try these:
Easy Self Saucing Plum Pudding
Ingredients
- 180 g (1 ½ cups) plain flour
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- 100 g (½ cup) white sugar
- Pinch of salt
- 75 g (⅓ cup) butter, melted and cooled
- 1 egg
- 125 mls (½ cup) milk
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 500g 14 plums (approx. or 850g canned plums*), roughly chopped with stones removed
- 150 g (¾ cup) soft brown sugar
- 250 mls (1 cup) hot water
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 180C (355F) and grease a 6-8 cup capacity, shallow oven-proof baking dish.
- In a medium sized bowl, sift flour, baking powder, sugar and salt. Whisk until combined.
- In a small bowl, whisk butter, egg, milk and vanilla until combined and fold into flour mixture, until there are no lumps. Add plums and pour mixture into prepared baking dish.
- Sprinkle brown sugar over the plum pudding then pour hot water over the back of a spoon all over the pudding (this creates the sauce). There should be enough room for the pudding to rise in the dish (i.e. don't fill over ⅔ full to avoid boiling over). Bake for 35-40 minutes or until golden and bubbling. Serve with fresh cream or ice cream.
I've been looking for a plum pudding recipe without the hours of steaming! Thank you. I added 1/2 tsp of nutmeg, allspice, cinnamon, and 1/4 tsp cloves. The sauce boiled over and made a mess of my oven so I'm going to try with a 9cup baking dish next time.
Hi Jeanie, Oh no — I'm so sorry about the oven mess! 😬 Thank you for letting me know. I think the sauce may simply have been a little too close to the top of the dish, as it can bubble quite vigorously while baking. A larger 9-cup dish should definitely give it more room, although I’ll look at adding a clearer note to the recipe about leaving plenty of headroom.
And I love the extra spices you added - all sound delicious with the plums!
Can you cook and freeze this?
That's a great question. You could, but the pudding would loose it's sauciness and it might need some extra cream or milk when reheating. Let me know if you give it a try.
hey, it's baking now. Just wanted to comment on the flour, 25g is no way enough. I used around 1.5 cups. recipe may need correcting. cheers
Oops thanks for noticing this, yes you're right - it should be 1.5 cups (180g). Corrected now 🙂
I made this with GF flour. worked out really well. delicious! easy to make
thanks 👍😊😊
Hi Carole, great to hear! Thanks for sharing.
Works really well and delicious! Thanks Sarah!
Great to hear, thanks Sasha!
Are canned plums to be drained before using? Can't rate as I have tried it yet, but sounds great.
Hi Rosie, great question! Yes, drain plums first 🙂 Enjoy baking it!