Christmas Puddings

The time of year is upon us.  Like it or not (and I do), Christmas is coming.  In descending order, these are my favourite parts of Christmas - cooking in advance (cakes and puddings, gingerbread dough to freeze, rumballs), cooking (hams, custards, turkeys etc), gift wrapping and ribbon selection, tree decorating (which includes eggnog drinking and carol CD listening), gift buying and giving, and finally I also enjoy selecting and mailing out Christmas cards, though I could do without the actual writing, which always leaves me sore-handed.

But above all, easily my favourite part of Christmas is pudding making.  Perhaps because it needs to be done in advance, it is the first event which really gets the house feeling and smelling Christmassy.  Of course, you can do your puddings much further in advance (in fact, I also did some earlier, as I had fruit to use up) or indeed you can do puddings later than I (the last Sunday in November, a.k.a. Stir-Up Sunday, is common, and a pudding can, in theory, even be served on the day it is made, with no aging).  I, however, choose to do most of my puddings in October every year, since it is close enough to Christmas to enjoy 'getting in the spirit' but far enough out to a) age your puddings well and b) leave you plenty of time for other festive baking and gift shopping.  Although I do not recommend doing your gift shopping past mid November anyway, because people are far too hostile in the shops - customers and staff alike.

A few notes to start:

All of the dried fruit I use is organic (my mother who is Pudding Fan #1 is allergic to the sulfates found in much dried fruit).  Organic fruit is not always better, however, and some of the ordinary supermarket brands offer lovely plump fruit.  If you want to include candied peel or glace cherries, I really recommend either finding an excellent high-end supplier, making your own, or doing without.  Supermarket peel and cherries can be really, really nasty.

For me, a proper Christmas pudding contains suet.  Not butter.  I'm sure there are some lovely puddings out there made with butter, but I am stubbornly unwavering in my dedication to the suet pudding.  I have compared and tasted, and I find that suet puddings are all-at-once lighter, richer and silkier on the palette.  In fact, I admit, I have become quite boorish on the topic and have no doubt offended people, over the years, with my scorn of the butter pudding.  Never mind, as they say, you can't please everyone so you might as well please yourself.  So suet it is.  NOTE - most butchers only get their suet in from the week after Melbourne Cup weekend, so if you want to make your puddings earlier, give your butcher a week's notice and they will be able to order some in for you.

I think that if you are going to bother making a Christmas pudding - with the required 6 hours of sitting around the house, topping up boiling water as they steam - you might as well make several.  At  least, as many puddings as you have burners on your stove.  You can mix up all the mixture together, and once they are cooking, it is no more effort to top up four or five pots of water than it is to monitor just one.  So I recommend doing a few puddings - you can always have one for Christmas day, and another for Christmas eve / boxing day, or else give them away as (spectacularly appreciated!) gifts.

How do you store a pudding?  If you live in England, you simply keep it 'somewhere cool'.  If you live in Australia, and you celebrate Christmas in December, 'somewhere cool' means the fridge.  I know that it is terribly unromantic, and it sounds so lovely to store a pudding in a nice cool cellar or cupboard, but the reality is that the heat and the humidity in most of Australia means your pudding risks developing mould, due to its dampness.  I have managed to successfully store puddings in a cool part of the house (a dark box in the back of a spare wardrobe), but it's safest and easiest to just wrap them well in clingfilm and foil, and keep them in the fridge.

Because I make steamed puddings (as opposed to boiled cloth puddings, which I have made in the past, however I prefer the dense dampness of a steamed pudding), I use pudding basins.  In fact, you don't need a pudding basin - you can steam puddings in mugs, ramekins or porcelain bowls - but a good ceramic basin is inexpensive, and makes a nicely shaped pudding.  The 'lip' around the top also helps when covering the pudding for cooking.  I recommend the Mason Cash brand pudding bowls - so sturdy and a nice fat shape - but you can buy ceramic basins practically everywhere, and you can also find some gorgeous pastel coloured ones in antique and second hand stores.  I own over 15 pudding basins (it's an addiction!) and the one I use to make the 'big momma' pudding each year (the very largest, which weighs over 3kg and feeds 20+ people) is an incredibly solid, wide 3.5 litre basin.

Here is the recipe.  It is my own recipe.  I originally combined the best features of several recipes I found - 8 years ago now - and over the years have slightly adapted and tweaked it.  This recipe produces an incredibly good, fruit-laden, moist, brandy-rich, spiced and full-flavoured pudding.  Some people prefer a lighter, cakier pudding.  Not me, nor any of my family and friends.  For us, this is it.

This is a 'single quantity'.  I generally make a triple recipe, which means over 3kg of fruit, and requires a trough or oversized stock pot to stir up the mixture.  If you aren't up to tackling such ridiculous quantities of mixture, the below recipe will still give you either one enormous 3kg pudding, or 2 medium/large puddings, or several (4 or so) smaller puddings.

• 360g currants
• 360g raisins (cut into currant-sized pieces, 4-8 pieces per raisin)
• 180g sultanas (cut into currant-sized pieces, 2-4 pieces per sultana)
• 100g candied peel, finely chopped (source excellent peel or don't bother, in which case augment the quantity of dried fruit with 100g extra sultanas)
• 80g dates (cut into currant-sized pieces)
• 1 cup blanched, chopped almonds or macadamias (feel free to halve this quantity if you are not as nut-obsessed as I)
• 1/2 cup stout or dark ale
• 200ml brandy (some recipes use less than 20 per cent of this amount.  If you must, halve it to 100ml, but I wouldn't go any lower, and indeed sometimes I sneak in more brandy.)
• 60ml orange juice
• 40ml lemon juice
• 1 teaspoon of grated orange zest
• 1 teaspoon of grated lemon zest (try to find unwaxed lemons)
• 1 cooking apple or quince, grated
• 1 small carrot, grated (I forgot this year, and haven't lost any sleep over it)
• 250g fresh suet (ask your butcher to clean and mince it for you.  I did my own cleaning and grating one year.  Never again)
• 220g brown sugar
• 4 large free range eggs
• 200g fresh white breadcrumbs (buy a decent loaf - I use a white sourdough - then slice and leave to go stale-ish.  Then you can grate it or put it in the food processor to make fine breadcrumbs.  Store them in the fridge or the freezer if need be.)
• 200g self-raising flour
• 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1/2 teaspoon ground allspice (not mixed spice)
• 1/2 teaspoon grated nutmeg, fresh if possible

Begin the preparation a week ahead of the day you want to cook the puddings.  You should to soak the fruit for a week, though a few days will do.

Firstly, pick over the currants and discard any little hard stems.

Now, you will ideally cut the raisins, sultanas and dates into small pieces - when cooking for competition (e.g. the Royal Shows), one of the main judging criteria is that all of the pieces of fruit are the same size.  This makes for a beautiful looking pudding, but also means it will cut well and has the best texture.  Generally, this means raisins are cut into 4-8 pieces, and sultanas into 2-4 pieces.  I find it easiest to sit on the sofa and snip the fruit with sharp kitchen scissors (watching Downton Abbey, if you're curious), however you could also use a very sharp knife.  No lie, this is the hardest part of the pudding - since I do such large quantities, this year I had nearly ten hours of snipping fruit!  I divided it over three days, doing a few hours each day while Tabitha napped and in the evenings.  

Snipped sultanas:

Snipped raisins:

Snipped dates:

If you'd prefer not to martyr yourself for the fruit gods, you could simply snip each sultana and raisin in half.  I've done it that way before, and the pudding is, of course, still brilliant.  While you cut the fruit, discard any woody stalks.

Place the raisins, currants, sultanas, peel, dates and brandy in a large bowl, mix well to separate any clumps of fruit, and cover securely with an air-tight lid or clingfilm.  Leave for a week if possible, giving it a stir every couple of days.  Add a little more brandy if the fruits have soaked it all up, and you like a brandy-rich pudding.

Here is a close-up of the soaked fruit (taken after I added the nuts) - you can see the plump currants, and the other cut-up pieces of fruit are all roughly the same size:

Two days before 'steaming day', add the dark ale, the grated rinds, the lemon and orange juice and the chopped nuts.  Cover again, and leave to sit.

The day or evening prior to cooking, you need to mix up the pudding mixture, and put it in the basins, then seal them up.  The puddings will then sit in the fridge overnight, before being steamed the next day.  By doing this prep work the night before, it allows the breadcrumbs to swell nicely, for a lighter puddings, and also it divides the work over two days - the mixing and fiddly foil-and-paper-and-string coverings on one day, and the many-hour steaming and topping up the following day.  It is very manageable this way, even when working with vast quantities.

So.  The day or evening prior to cooking...

Here is the mis-en-plas (for a triple mixture - over 12kg of ingredients).  Clockwise from top left, the soaked fruits/nuts/rind/ale mixture, the flour and sugar, the breadcrumbs, the eggs, the spices, the suet, and the apples in the middle.

You can see the spices - the dark allspice, the pale ginger, the cocoa-coloured cinnamon.  In the middle is (part of) a whole nutmeg, ready to be grated with a Microplane.  This is a lot of spice - remember, this is a triple mixture.

To the soaked fruits, add the suet, brown sugar, eggs, breadcrumbs, flour, spices, apple or quince, carrot and a good pinch of salt.  Mix well - I recommend using your clean hands, as it's easier to ensure everything is thoroughly and evenly combined.  If you prefer to use a spoon, make sure it's a sturdy one!  It is traditional to have every member of the household 'have a stir' and make a wish as they do so.  I needed to mix my pudding mixture up in a truly enormous stock pot, but if you are doing a single quantity, a very large mixing bowl should do.

Here is my stock pot full of pudding:

Lightly grease your basins (an extra large, or two medium, or a few small) with butter.  Line the bases with a small circle of baking paper.

Fill the basins with mixture, patting it in firmly, and allowing about 2cm at the top for swelling.  If you wish, you can add a small silver charm or silver coin (check online for which ones are suitable - some coins are toxic).  Luck befalls she who finds the charm in her pudding serving, so the legend goes.  If you forget, you can always just tuck the charm into one of the pudding servings as you are dishing up. 

 

Cover each basin with a layer of baking paper and a layer of foil, with a pleat along the middle to allow for swelling, and with the baking paper side closest to the pudding (for large basins, ordinary foil may not be quite wide enough - you can buy extra wide foil at most supermarkets).  Tie the covering on very firmly with kitchen string - I recommend wetting the string first, which will allow it to stretch, meaning you can get the very tightest fit.  The string needs to be tied firmly enough to prevent any water getting through your paper-and-foil and into your pudding.  I tie two separate strings, to ensure maximum tightness.  Use the ends of your string to tie a handle - you will use this to get your pudding in and out of the boiling pot of water.

Now, tuck your puddings into the fridge overnight.

The next day, your puddings will need a decent amount of cooking time - 6 hours for a large pudding, 4 hours for a medium pudding, 3 hours for a small pudding.  Obviously, you will know for yourself whether it's best to put the puddings on to steam early in the morning, or after lunch, or whatever works for you.  If you are doing a few small puddings, you could certainly steam them together in a large pot - just make sure they aren't touching.

Each pudding will need to sit in a saucepan or stock pot large enough to fit the entire pudding, without touching the sides or the lid.  Sit each pudding on a trivet, or an upturned saucer, or even one of those folding cheap metal veggie steamers.  Add enough boiling water to come 2/3 up the side of the pudding, put on the lid, and keep at a low boil for the required number of hours.  You will need to top up the pot with extra boiling water from time to time (it pays to check them every half hour or so) - so it's best to keep a kettle of boiling water on the go, so you don't suddenly get caught short.  A slice of lemon into each pot will help prevent the pots from becoming discoloured.

 

Never, ever let the pudding boil dry.  I've heard that you can pop a marble or two into the water, and they will start to make a loud rattle if the water gets to low.  I haven't done it myself, but I like the idea of it and I imagine it would work.

This photo is taken after two of my puddings had already been taken off the stove (smaller ones).  There is another pudding in the fridge, waiting to be cooked the next day, as I lacked enough stove space with 'only' a 90cm cooktop (oh, to have an industrial kitchen!).

Once the time is up, turn the heat off, and carefully remove the pudding by lifting it up by its string handle - do take care, because the steam can burn very badly, the puddings are quite heavy, and the string can slip.  Aim to have a wooden board or thick potholder on the bench right next to the stove ready to sit it on, so you don't have to carry the heavy, scalding pudding across the room!

Here is a pudding, removed from the heat, sitting to cool a little:

Leave the pudding to sit and cool for half an hour, then snip the string and remove the foil and paper.  Allow the pudding to cool down to a gentle warmth, then slip a butter knife gently down the sides, to loosen the pudding, if you want - I don't bother.  Turn it upside down onto a rack or plate - because of the suet, the pudding should slide easily out.  I have never had one stick.  The trick is to avoid removing it when it's too hot (since it will be quite breakable) or when it's too cool (in which case the suet won't give the pudding enough slip).

Once the puddings are cool, wrap each pudding in a double layer of cling film, and some foil if you'd like, then store them in the fridge or a very cool, dry place for at least a month.  Up to a year or so is fine - if you wanted to, you could certainly make your puddings in November, and save a pudding for the following year's Christmas!  The Daddy loves pudding, and this year has requested that I set one aside for his 30th 'birthday cake' in April.

Now, I should mention - if you prefer, you can certainly keep the pudding in the bowl.  That is, simply wrap the entire basin with the pudding inside, in cling film and foil.  I don't, simply because I make a lot and they take up less room without their bowls.  But you can.

Fast forward a couple of months.  How do you reheat your pudding?  You simply need to re-steam it, the way you initially did.  You can certainly microwave it - though I recommend this more for single serves or small puddings.  Every year, I give a large pudding to my parents, and they simply reheat single serves of it for the following week or so, having it after dinner with ice cream.  But for 'The Pudding' on Christmas day, served to your family or guests, you would probably want to re-steam it.  The texture is best, the heat is even, and the cooking will help to further develop the rich flavours.

Lightly grease the basin.  Unwrap the pudding, placing it back into the basin it was originally cooked in (tip - use sticky dots with numbers to match your wrapped puddings to their basins, if you have a lot of basins and worry you will forget which goes with which).  Cover once again with a layer of baking paper and a layer of foil, with a pleat, double tied with string, with a string handle.  Just like the first time.  Using the same method as described above (trivet, large pot with a lid, 2/3 boiling water, check regularly), steam a large or medium pudding for 2 hours, or a small pudding for an hour and a half.

When done, remove the pudding in its basin, and allow to sit somewhere for around 15 minutes.  Then, turn onto a large serving platter to serve.  Gently warm some cognac, brandy or vodka (do not boil, as you don't want to cook off any of the alcohol), then pour over the pudding, and quickly set alight with a match to serve.  The flame business happens very quickly, so to avoid disappointment, have all the lights turned off, and the guests assembled, ready to go before you set your pudding alight!  Note - the whole lighting-up of the pudding really increases the alcoholic flavour.  If you have lots of kids around, or prefer not to knock yourself out, you might prefer to do away with the flame element - or serve the 'edge pieces' to those who like the strength.

If you've gone to the trouble of making your own pudding, you really ought to make proper custard to accompany it - it's not difficult at all, and you can certainly make it the day before, reheating it (slowly and gently) on the day.

For 600ml or so of custard, simply place 250ml full cream milk and 250ml double cream into a large, heavy-bottomed saucepan.  Add a vanilla pod, split in half.  Heat, and when it is just about to boil, remove from the heat and leave to sit and infuse for half an hour.  Meanwhile, whisk 5 egg yolks with 40g caster sugar until thick and creamy.  Strain the cream into the yolks, beating while you go (a KitchenAid or standing mixer, or a willing helper, is useful for this).  Now, add the mixture back into the saucepan (rinse and dry it first), then heat over a low-medium heat for around 10  minutes, stirring without stopping until the custard is thickened - that is, if you lift the wooden spoon, you can run your finger across it and leave a clean strip.  Remember - the custard is very hot, and as it cools a little, it will naturally thicken up.

Don't overcook, don't heat too high, or you risk 'splitting' which means that the egg starts to cook and you get nasty grainy bits.  If that happens, immediately sit the saucepan into a sink of icy water, beat like mad, and then strain it into a clean bowl.  It can be saved.

Now, personally, I like to scrape the vanilla beans into the custard when I am about to do the cooking part - I like the black-flecked look.  It is easy enough to double the mixture, though if you wanted even more, I'd probably do two large batches.  If you want to make it in advance, pour into a bowl, and press some cling film over the surface (to prevent a skin forming).  Store in the fridge overnight, and reheat slowly over a low heat when you are ready to serve it.

Other traditional accompaniments include hard sauce (a.k.a. brandy butter) and possibly brandy cream.  Although this pudding is deliciously rich, so I don't tend to find extra brandy sauces necessary.  The custard, and some good vanilla ice cream, works perfectly for me.