- Do you know about this traditional Christmas dish?
What do you prepare for your Christmas dinner? Have you ever made Christmas Pudding?
Origins:
This sweet dish originally came from the United Kingdom. The ingredients were considered more accessible, affordable and easy to keep on hand for any special occasion or a treat.
What Is It:
This traditional Christmas dessert is made with nuts, dried fruits, eggs, spices, molasses, flour and buttery. It’s served sliced and topped with a sweet sauce like a decadent hard sauce. This dish is also sometimes called plum pudding or figgy pudding. Back then, people would use root vegetables and fats like lard and suet. These days, the dish is made with butter as the primary fat in the dessert.
How To Make It:
Traditional Christmas Pudding
- 1 cup dried currants
- 3/4 cup raisins
- 3/4 cup golden raisins
- 2 tablespoons chopped candied orange peel
- 2 tablespoons chopped candied lemon peel
- 2 tablespoons chopped walnuts, optional
- 1/2 cup brandy
- 2 cups fresh white breadcrumbs (toast bread in the oven until crisp and dry then smash or blender pulse the bread until it’s breadcrumbs)
- 1/2 cup flour
- 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon mixed spice (a combination of cinnamon, allspice, nutmeg, cloves, ginger, coriander and mace.)
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- 4 ounces shredded beef suet
- 1 cup packed brown sugar
- 2 large eggs, scrambled
- 1 small apple, peeled, cored and grated
- 1 tablespoon molasses
- Lemon zest
- Orange zest (from an orange the approximate size of your lemon)
- And a hard sauce made of unsalted butter, powdered sugar, brandy or imitation rum, and vanilla.
Directions:
- To make Christmas pudding, place the raisins, golden raisins, currants, walnuts, and candied citrus peel in a bowl. Pour the brandy over and stir to combine the mixture. Cover and refrigerate overnight.
- The next day, add the breadcrumbs, flour, baking powder, brown sugar, and spices into the bowl and stir to combine.
- In another bowl place the soaked dried fruit mixture, grated apple, molasses, suet, lemon and orange zest, and egg. Stir to combine.
- Add the dry mixture to the fruit mixture. It will be thick and sticky as you stir to combine.
- Generously butter a large pudding mold and scoop the batter into the mold, pressing down and smoothing it to the top.
- Cut a circle out of parchment paper, then lightly butter and place it over the top of the mold and down the sides, securing it with a string. Trim off excess paper.
- Bring a large pot of water to a very low simmer. Place a folded cloth on the bottom of the pot and lower the pudding mold down into the water on top of the folded cloth. The water level should come up to the halfway point of the pudding mold. Cover the pot with the lid.
- Steam the pudding on very low heat for about 8 hours. The water should not be boiling, it should be steaming. Check to be sure the water remains about half way up the pot and add some as needed. (The longer the pudding steams, the darker color it will become.)
- Once the pudding is done steaming, lift the pudding out of the mold and let it sit for 5 minutes. Then invert the pudding on a plate and let it sit until the pudding slides out onto the plate. Let the pudding cool completely.
- To serve, warm the pudding by resteaming it for 30-60 minutes or microwave it until it’s warmed through..
- You can light it on fire, top it with hard sauce, dust it with powdered
sugar, a dollop of whipped cream , a scoop of ice cream or custard or a drizzle of lemon sauce. - Store wrapped tightly with aluminum foil in a dark, cool place like the basement. If you need to store it in the fridge, wrap it in two layers of aluminum foil.
This is an intense recipe with a lot of steps and ingredients. Let me know in the comments if you will attempt Christmas pudding at the holidays this year!