Christmas Puddings

It's Christmas Pudding time!

I'd been thinking about making Christmas puddings for the first time, and I thought my week off after our trip to the Czech Republic would be perfect. But, as per usual I managed to do not that much during the week but not get around to making any puddings either.... so I finally found some time in my busy schedule and started Saturday morning around 11 and finished up around 12:30 Sunday morning. I think they turned out pretty well for a first try, but I can't actually report back with a verdict until December 25th.... they look and smell delicious anyway!

I found the recipe here, then halved the quantities and changed some of the measurements to metric to make things easier for myself

Makes:

1 x 1.5 litre pudding

2 x 0.5 litre puddings

5 eggs

125 g plain white flour

2 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp all spice

1 tsp nutmeg

50 g chopped almonds

1 small cooking apple peeled and grated

225 g light brown flour

1 small carrot grated

rind and juice of a small orange and lemon

680 g mixed raisins and sultanas

100 g candied cherries

300 g bread crumbs (you can use white if you like, but I used wholemeal crumbs)

150 g candied peel

1/2 pint Guinness

225 g butter

I started by blitzing some "tasty wholemeal" bread in the blender, then mixed the crumbs with the rest of all the dry ingredients in a large bowl. I rubbed the raisins and other dried fruits with the flour and spice mix... use your hands and mix well... then I cut the butter into small pieces (lumps) and mixed this in with the fruit and spices. This is a lovely sticky job, I got covered in spices and bits of fruit and it started to smell really Christmassy...

In a separate bowl, I combined all the liquid ingredients, then added that to the dry ingredients and mixed it all together really well. The batter should be quite loose, like thick cake mix; if it's too dry, add a splash more Guinness.

After greasing the small bowls with butter and cutting a circle of greaseproof paper and putting that in the bottom of the big bowl then greasing that too; I filled all the pudding bowls to within about an inch of the tops.

I covered them using greaseproof paper, with a pleat folded in the middle (to give the steam some room) and secured well with string, then covered with tinfoil and secured tightly with more string.

And I managed to fashion a little handle for the larger bowl with more of the string, which I was really glad I did as it came in handy when I needed to lift it out of the slow cooker.

And here, I will advise you to cook your puddings according to whatever method suits you best. I used my large slow cooker for the big pudding, that took about twelve hours, and I boiled the two small puddings in two separate saucepans on the cooker for about seven hours.

My two little puddings, covered with greaseproof paper and lids firmly wedged down

The slow cooker and both saucepans with the small puddings needed topping up with boiling water at least every couple of hours. I thought the slow cooker would barely need a refill, but I had to add boiling water about four times during cooking. 

I checked all the puddings with a wooden skewer to make sure they were properly "done" (I was somehow still paranoid even though they'd been steamed for seven and twelve hours) and after letting them go cold over night, I removed the greaseproof paper and tinfoil and dribbled a generous "tablespoon" of brandy onto the medium pudding and about a teaspoon onto the small puddings, I sealed them back up in greaseproof paper and tinfoil and put them away to mature until Christmas. 

The pudding will need to be steamed for an hour before serving; you can either removed the wrapping and return to the original bowl and stream again for an hour - or - unwrap the pudding and place it on a heatproof serving plate and microwave for 10 minutes at half power.

To light the pudding, pour a generous measure of warmed brandy or whiskey on top - light carefully - the blue flames should creep up the sides, but they won't last long!

My parents Christmas pudding, with flaming "sauce" - Christmas 2012

Serve with whipped cream, custard, brandy butter, ice cream.....