Save the best till last

In the final part of his winter-food series, Michael Bateman tracks down the unsung hero of British puddings, and proves that good things come to those who wait for dessert

I've got a great appetite and a sweet tooth." By saying that, Galton Blackiston has made my day. To bring our winter-food series to a finale, I wanted to find the biggest person in traditional puddings, and Blackiston, a giant of a chef who stands at 6ft 5in, is exactly that, in terms of both height and ability.

If Blackiston's name is not as familiar as some from the media merry-go-round, that's because he prefers to ply his trade at Morston Hall, his hotel and restaurant by the north Norfolk coast. More familiar are the names of some the puddings on the menu: sticky toffee, steamed orange sponge, chocolate roulade. All schoolboy favourites, but this is no canteen – Blackiston has a star from those Francophile folk at Michelin. Does he think it odd that old-fashioned comfort food should win such an accolade?

"In London there are a lot of foreign chefs and they don't know British puddings," says Blackiston. "Sticky toffee pudding is really popular here, people love it, they love all the traditional puddings. I think they're coming back gradually, it's nostalgia. What's definitely the next big thing is to keep the puddings seasonal – strawberry desserts in the summer and not in the middle of the winter."

It's really no surprise that Blackiston is standing by his love for sticky puddings. He started making cakes commercially after his early cricket career hit a sticky wicket. "In the summer of 1979 I flunked my A-levels and got chucked out of the Kent side. So I set up a market stall every Thursday in Rye and called it Galton's Goodies. I sold cakes, bread and jams. By lunchtime I'd be sold out."

Then he got his break: a placement with John Tovey at Miller Howe hotel/restaurant in Cumbria. After sticky puddings became extinct in the 1950s, when the fashion moved towards lighter dishes, it was Tovey who brought them back into currency. While most chefs leave puds to a specialist, Tovey makes them all himself each morning, and he took on Blackiston as his assistant.

When it was time to start his own restaurant, Blackiston still cooked from this repertoire. "When I opened at Morston Hall some 10 years ago, the only style I knew was John Tovey's. It was fine in its day, but I soon began to realise that cooking had moved on. My first review virtually slaughtered my cooking, and I thought, 'You're right, get rid of it all, make it a lot lighter,'" he recalls. "The only exceptions were the puddings – I didn't change them."

So Blackiston's pudding recipes really do have the best pedigree in the business. Here we have four classics, chosen by Blackiston. "My eight-year-old son adores sticky toffee pudding. We all love orange sponge pudding and chocolate roulade." You'll need no serving suggestions – I'm sure you know and love them well. Only the rich, custardy charter pudding might be unfamiliar, but not if you live in the same part of the world as Blackiston. "It's an old Norfolk favourite."

Morston Hall, Holt, Norfolk, tel: 01263 741 041