Pearce Duff's Blancmange Vanilla Flavour - 35g

Blancmange sits in the old British pudding cupboard with jelly and custard: the set desserts that arrived at teatime with very little fuss and a lot of ceremony. Vanilla is the pale, plain one, the classic that everyone pictures first.

People in Canada go looking for it because of the memory more than the taste. The rabbit mould, the dome that slumped a bit on the plate, the grandparent who insisted it was set when it clearly was not. You can try to recreate that from scratch. Most people would rather just buy the packet.

It comes as a small 35g packet, light and flat, so a couple can live in the cupboard until someone asks what is for pudding. Follow the method on the pack, let it set in the fridge, and serve it as it is or with fruit or a spoonful of jam on the side.

It tends to go in the basket with the other British baking staples: custard powder, jelly, a tin of something for the top. Between them, that is a proper pudding out of very little.