Halving a steamed sponge pudding?

[Stupid Little Genius]

I have a wonderful recipe for a steam sponge pudding, and I love it, but it’s too big, serves 6. So I would like to halve it, as I do with cakes and things. But I’m not sure about the cooking time. It’s the only recipe that I steam, so I’ve never played with the cooking times. Does it take the same amount of time? Or do I reduce that as well?

Here’s the recipe:

100 g (4 oz) margarine
100 g (4 oz) caster sugar
2 medium eggs
225 g (8 oz) Self Raising Flour
2 x 15 ml spoon (2 tbsp) milk

1 Grease a 1.2 litre (2 pint) pudding basin (fill the bottom with jam, or other topping if desired). Cream margarine and sugar, beat in the eggs one at a time with a little flour.
2 Fold in the remaining flour and milk. Place mixture in prepared basin (on top of jam).
3 Cover with pleated greaseproof paper or foil and steam for 1½ hours. Serve with custard or sauce

 

[ChesterV]

I would think, if you are steaming it, it doesn't matter. For me, I would steam it for 45 minutes, then turn the heat off and letting it sit there for 10 minutes before taking it out.

 

[Norcalbaker59]

It’s impossible to know the cooking/baking after scaling a recipe since the two factors (ingredient amounts & baking/cooking time) are not linear. A 50% reduction or increase in ingredients does not translate into a 50% reduction or increase in cooking/baking time.

Cooking/baking times are affected by a number of factors including the type of oven/stove; temperature of ingredients; type of bakeware/cookware; density of batter/ dough; chemical reaction of ingredients to moisture and heat; amount and method of heat.

When scaling a baking recipe you do not reduce/increase by a percentage. Rather the ingredients amounts are calculated using the difference in area of the pan. The batter amount and pan size are then relative to the original recipe, so baking times not altered significantly. But pudding bowls are odd shapes, so calculating area is not easy.

If simply reducing the ingredients by 50%, I suggest you use a pudding bowl relative to the amount of the reduction. Check around the three-quarter mark, so about 60 - 67 minutes.