In our house we like to make the Christmas Pudding on stir up Sunday. The whole family gather round to stir the mixture and make a wish.
Before I started making my own pudding I thought Christmas pud was my food Hell but after making my own, I truly do love it.
You can change the fruits around and it's the same with the nuts and the spirit, make it your own and serve it with pride.
This is my basic pudding (found in my first book, A Passion For Baking) using different fruits and nuts xx
80g suet
40g melted butter
110g brioche breadcrumbs
60g plain flour
2 tsp mixed spice
200g soft light brown sugar
100g Golden Sultanas
100g Dried Cherries
100g Dried chopped apricots
100g chopped dried prunes
30g mixed peel paste
100g almonds
50g pecans
50g pecans
1 cooking apple peeled, cored and chopped
Zest of a small orange
Zest of a lemon
2 eggs
40 ml freshly squeezed orange juice
120 ml stout
3 tbsp calvados
The day before you want to make your pudding take a really large mixing bowl and add all the dried ingredients.
Mix the eggs, butter, orange juice, stout and calvados together in a small jug.
Make a well in the centre of the dry ingredients and pour in the liquid,give a good stir, I always get the boys to give a stir and a wish at this point.
Cover with a clean tea towel and leave for the flavours to develop overnight.
Spoon into a 2 pint pudding basin and cover with a double layer of grease proof paper and a sheet of foil, tie with some string.
Put either into a steamer pan or in a large saucepan with a saucer in the bottom filled half way up the basin with water, steam for 8 hours, checking regularly that the water doesn’t run dry.
Leave the pudding to go cold then remove the foil and papers.
Cover with fresh paper and foil, store in a cool dark place until your ready to re-heat,
Re-steam for 3 hours any leftover pudding can be stored in the fridge and wrapped in foil and re-heated in the oven.
The day before you want to make your pudding take a really large mixing bowl and add all the dried ingredients.
Mix the eggs, butter, orange juice, stout and calvados together in a small jug.
Make a well in the centre of the dry ingredients and pour in the liquid,give a good stir, I always get the boys to give a stir and a wish at this point.
Cover with a clean tea towel and leave for the flavours to develop overnight.
Spoon into a 2 pint pudding basin and cover with a double layer of grease proof paper and a sheet of foil, tie with some string.
Put either into a steamer pan or in a large saucepan with a saucer in the bottom filled half way up the basin with water, steam for 8 hours, checking regularly that the water doesn’t run dry.
Leave the pudding to go cold then remove the foil and papers.
Cover with fresh paper and foil, store in a cool dark place until your ready to re-heat,
Re-steam for 3 hours any leftover pudding can be stored in the fridge and wrapped in foil and re-heated in the oven.
With it being #StirUpSunday this week, my #TopTip is for a steam free kitchen steam your Christmas pud in a cast iron pot a third filled with hot water, with a lid in a very low oven or the simmering oven #AGA for roughly *10-16 hrs
(*depending on how your AGA runs)
FOR MORE CHRISTMAS IDEAS CLICK HERE
