Christmas Pudding, a very British Christmas Dessert
Christmas pudding is a traditional British dessert served at the end of the Christmas meal. It is a rather heavy, spicy and sweet pudding made up of dried fruits and quite often made with alcohol.
- Prep time
- 20 min
- Cook time
- 8 hr
- Yield
- 8 servings
- Difficulty
- HARD
Ingredients
- 200 g soft brown dark sugar
- 100 g breadcrumbs
- 100 g shredded vegetable suet/fat (or 80g salted, frozen butter, see article)
- 1 tsp ground mixed spice ((or Pumpkin Spice, in the US))
- a pinch ground cinnamon
- a pinch freshly grated nutmeg
- 200 g sultanas
- 200 g raisins
- 60 g chopped candied mixed peel
- 60 g toasted almonds, coarsely chopped
- 1 medium cooking apple (unpeeled, chopped)
- grated zest of 2 lemons
- 120 ml sweet sherry, like Harvey's Bristol Cream
- 4 tbsp brandy
- 2 eggs (lightly beaten, in a separate bowl)
- 50 g self raising flour, sifted (for the next day)
Instructions
- 1
Take a large mixing bowl, put the sugar, suet, breadcrumbs and spices in and mix well.
- 2
Add the dried fruit, peel, almonds, apple and lemon zest. Again, mix thoroughly.
- 3
Add the alcohol to the beaten egg and mix thoroughly and add this to the above.
- 4
Give it a good mix. Get the kids to give it a stir and make a wish (silently!). It should be a fairly sloppy mixture. Cover with clingfilm and leave overnight.
- 5
Stir in the flour and mix it well.
- 6
Put the mixture into the greased pudding basin(s), packing it in.
- 7
Cover with a layer of baking paper then foil, making a flap on both as in image, for the steam. Tie tightly with a string.
- 8
Steam over simmering water for 8 hours for a big pudding, 3 hours for any small ones. Don’t let the water go dry.
- 9
If you don’t have a steamer, use a saucepan with an inverted saucer, place the pudding on the saucer and fill it up with boiling water halfway up the pudding basin. Cover with a lid and let the water simmer away.
- 10
When done, let the pudding cool down completely (usually next day) and replace the parchment and foil with fresh.
- 11
Store in a cool, dark place, I put mine in the garage.
- 12
On Christmas day, steam the bigger pudding for 2 hours and the mini ones for 1.