This
pudding will re-appear if we ever get around to doing a Christmas
recipe book, but we thought we would put it in as it is such a brilliant recipe.
We make
it once a year, in trays, for our Café Christmas dinner menu - scaled
up enormously of course. Like a lot of our previous recipes this started in
the home of one of our cooks. Working from a Mrs. Beeton original, which had
about half a ton of suet as it’s main ingredient, it was refined into
this wonderful, very rich, but vegetarian version, more suited to our modern
palate. The original family sized recipe has been in use as the finishing
touch to Christmas dinner every year for at least 20 years, and still tastes
every bit as sensational as the first time.
Ingredients
- Serves
6 to 8
10oz (300g) bread crumbs (1 small loaf with the crusts cut off)
8oz (225g) muscovado sugar
12oz (350g) dried fruit
4oz (100g) margarine
1 level teaspoon mixed spice
1 level teaspoon ground cinnamon
good pinch of nutmeg (2 grates of a fresh nutmeg!)
2 level dessert spoons molasses
2 eggs (or 4 tablespoons sunflower oil for a vegan pudding)
juice from half a lemon
1 teaspoon of lime juice (optional)
½
wine glass rum or brandy or 10 drops rum essence
Method
- Mix all
the dry ingredients together in a good size mixing bowl.
- Add
the eggs and all the liquids.
- Stir the
mixture well until thoroughly mixed and
of an even colour. Don’t forget to make a wish as you stir
it!
- Once mixed
and wished over, put it in a pudding basin, cover with greaseproof
paper or foil and bake for 2 hours at gas
mark ,140°C, 275°F.
If you can arrange to put the pudding basin into a larger oven proof container,
with enough water to fill up the space between the two, and cover the whole
thing with another layer of kitchen foil, the results will be even better,
as you will have kept the moisture in the pudding.
Rich puddings
like this store very well if kept sealed in a cool place, or
frozen and so were always made well in advance of Christmas
and reheated. To reheat first allow to thaw naturally if frozen
and then put the pudding, in its bowl, in a large pan of water.
Cover and steam for ¾ to 1 hour. If possible stand the
pudding basin on something heat proof, to keep it off the bottom
of the pan - a jam jar lid will do. This will keep the heat spread
evenly.
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