Christmas Essentials
Fill your kitchen with the scents of sugar, spice and all things nice this Stir Up Sunday.
Turn on your favourite festive playlist, pour a mug of mulled wine or a cup of cocoa and try our Christmas Pudding Recipe below.
Ingredients:
225g seedless raisins
225g dried cherries
100g sultanas
125g dried apricots
50g dried chopped dates or figs
75g dried pears
1 lemon, juice and grated zest
1 orange, juice and grated zest
225g white breadcrumbs
75g plain flour
1tsp mixed spice
¼ tsp salt
225g shredded vegetable suet
225g soft dark brown sugar
4 large eggs beaten
55ml dark rum
55ml vermouth
75ml milk
Grease a pudding basin and line the base with non-stick baking parchment. Put the raisins, cherries and sultanas in a large mixing bowl with the dried pear and dates (or figs) lemon zest and juice, orange zest and juice, breadcrumbs, flour, mixed spice, salt, suet and sugar. Stir the ingredients well to mix them all together nicely.
In a separate bowl, whisk together the eggs, with the rum, the vermouth and milk. Add to the fruit mixture and stir really well so that the fruit and other ingredients are properly combined.
Spoon all the mixture into the pudding basin and cover the surface with a disc of greaseproof paper. Cover the whole basin with some more paper and foil, making a pleat in the centre to allow for expansion during cooking. Secure with some string.
Place the pudding basin into a large saucepan and pour enough boiling water in to come halfway up the basin. Bring up to the boil, cover the pan and boil steadily for 5 hours making sure the saucepan doesn't boil dry. Top up with boiling water if it looks like it's getting low.
Once cooked, remove from the pan and allow to cool completely. Re-cover with some fresh greaseproof paper and foil. Store in a cool, dark place for four weeks. You can always add a little more rum to the pudding if you like.
On Christmas day, reheat by steaming the pudding for 2 hours using the same technique described here. When your pudding is cooked, turn out onto a warmed serving dish. Warm some rum in a pan, and set it alight with a match. Pour this over the pudding and stick a sprig of holly in.