My mum’s Christmas pudding
There is only one recipe for Christmas pudding. It be longs to your mother, who picked it up from your grandmother, who learnt it from her neighbour, who once was lover to the cook to Queen Victoria, who got it from her mother…
For all generations before us, it was mum, or her mum, or her grandmum, who did all the work in preparation for Christmas Day. For this is an ancient dish, drifting back through time as a mix of meat broth and spices, with lucky charms and rings and coins tossed in to ward away evil spirits. I am loath to admit it, but much of my initial joy at Christmas pudding came from the coins picked clean and piled high on the plate beside me. It was rather nice to end Christmas lunch with a pile of two bobs to last through the holidays. But decimal currency came, and that form of greed was replaced by others, the coins no longer suitable for the pud. I think we can all survive without them; but not without mum’s recipe.
Whenever I think about Christmas pudding, I can recall on my palate the richness of flavour, the moistness, the surprises — a raisin here, an almond there — all brought together superbly with the most delicious custard. But most of all it was the tradition — to end the meal with a communal feast. It wouldn’t be Christmas without it.
400g suet, cleaned and stripped — That will come down to about 200g cleaned. If you don’t want to use suet, try 250g butter or margarine.
1 cup self-raising flour, or 1 cup plain flour with 2 teaspoons baking powder
5 cups soft white breadcrumbs
1 cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon freshly ground allspice
1 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon — If possible, whizz the spices just before you use them.
250g almonds, chopped roughly
zest of 2 lemons and 2 oranges
1kg (total) raisins and sultanas (and dates and prunes if you wish)
8 eggs
1½ cups good quality muscat
1 teaspoon bicarbonate soda, dissolved in a little water
¾ cup good brandy
1
It takes a while to clean the suet. There are so many membranes, inner and outer skins, pockets of meat and fat. Just persevere. Then whizz it until it is as soft and smooth as butter. Suet is really only there for its tradition. You are just as well to use butter or margarine.
2
Mix the flour with the breadcrumbs, sugar, spices, almonds, zests and dried fruits.
3
Mix through the whizzed suet (or the butter), working it with your hands until it is well and truly amalgamated. Don’t look for anything complicated with this recipe. Basically it is a matter of mixing it up, throwing it into bowls, and being patient.
4
Beat the eggs and add the muscat. Mix this and the sodium bicarbonate into the mix of dry goods and suet/butter. Add the brandy. The pudding mixture should be quite moist, certainly not liquid, but pourable, perhaps like lava in a good sci-fi movie. If it’s not of that consistency, add more muscat.
5
Leave the mix overnight to allow the flavours to mingle. You should have enough for a couple of large puddings. Cook the puddings in a well-greased, old-fashioned pudding bowl, well protected against any intruding water (use aluminium foil or pudding cloth), for about 6 hours, making sure the water is maintained at the boil. This is the only time you really need to take much care — to ensure the water doesn’t boil over or run dry.
6
I have never had the patience to keep the puddings for more than a day. To keep, they really need to be kept in muslin and allowed to dry out in a place with little humidity. Serve them doused with warm brandy, flamed.
WINE: I serve Rutherglen muscat with Christmas pud. Good Australian ‘Show’ brandy is also delicious. Try Renmano, Hardys or Mildara and expect to pay thirty-odd dollars.