apricot sponge

I always called my mother the queen of pudding making!

Saturday was her day to "prepare". Like her mother before her, she spent the morning making sweets for Sunday - and the week to follow, but particularly Sunday. They took the form of cakes, pies, cookies and, always, puddings. Cracker pudding, graham cracker pudding, tapioca, sometimes rice pudding, chocolate and vanilla puddings, caramel pudding, pineapple fluff and the clear winner of the bunch - apricot sponge!

It was always served in a glorious heavy cut-glass bowl.

The preparation involved soaking apricots, cooking them, putting them through a fruit press, adding gelatin to one part and whipping the other. The end result had a gelled apricot bottom, a feathery apricot middle and all topped with swirls of whipped cream.

I'm hyperventilating just typing the words!

And do I make it a lot? Once or twice in fifty years! I think I try to excuse myself saying that I no loner have a fruit press, but that's nonsense. I could improvise. I think it's more that I want to preserve a shining childhood memory.

 And let the queen reign forever.