Holiday Feast Atlas · Dessert
Christmas Pudding
- Advanced
- 7 h
- roughly 2 of 4 for cost
- Vegetarian
Leads with richness that coats and comforts, a sweet edge rounding the corners, melting away silken.
Ingredients
- 500g mixed dried fruit + 100g candied peel, soaked OVERNIGHT (traditionally weeks) in 150ml brandy or stout
- 120g suet or cold grated butter; 120g dark brown sugar; 100g breadcrumbs + 80g flour
- 2 eggs; 1 grated apple + 1 grated carrot (the moisture insurance); black treacle 1 tbsp; mixed spice, generous
- Silver coin or charm, sterilized, hidden inside, per tradition and dental waiver
- A pudding basin, parchment-and-foil lid pleated for expansion, string handle; more brandy for the flames
Equipment
Parchment · Grater / zester
The skills inside
FlambéSteaming: basket, leaf and lidSoaking dried goods back to life
Allergen screen
Found: gluten · dairy · egg · alcohol
Screened for: gluten, dairy, egg, nuts, peanuts, fish, shellfish, molluscs, soy, sesame, celery, mustard, lupin, alcohol. Not screened: sulphites.
Screened by keyword from the ingredient list, not reviewed by a person; check every label for what the list cannot show.
Method
- Stir-up Sunday protocol: everyone in the house stirs the mix east-to-west and makes a wish; then pack into the buttered basin, lid it with pleated parchment and foil, tie with string.
- STEAM 6 hours, topping up the water: long steam is the color and the depth; there is no shortcut oven. 360 min
- Cool; re-lid; store in a cold cupboard 4–6 weeks, feeding it a spoon of brandy weekly: the pudding matures like the season's patience.
- Christmas Day: steam 2 hours to reheat; unmold; warm brandy in a ladle, ignite, and pour the blue flames over at the table, lights dimmed. Serve with brandy butter or custard. 120 min
How to tell it is going right
This dish has no standard of its own yet. It is judged on the techniques it exercises: checked at the pan, while there is still something to be done about it.
Soaking dried goods back to life 69 recipes
- Fully submerged with room to swell: the level is well above everything at the start and still above it at the end.
- Given the full time, and judged by what is in the bowl rather than by the hours on the clock.
- Tested at the CENTRE of the largest piece, cut or pressed. Anything with a hard dry core will still have one after cooking, because the outside softens first and stops the water getting further in.
- The soaking water was dealt with on purpose: kept because it holds flavour, or thrown away because it holds what should not be eaten, but never simply left undecided.
- Drained before it is used, so the dish does not silently gain all the water that came with it.
Where it goes wrong Too little water, or too little time. The pieces swell until they are packed tight against each other and the ones in the middle never fully take up water; they will not soften later in the dish either, so the finished plate has hard pieces scattered through it.
Steaming: basket, leaf and lid 130 recipes
- Steam was running before the food went in: the water at a rolling boil and vapour coming steadily through the basket, rather than the whole thing warming up together.
- Nothing touches the water at any point: the food sits clear of it throughout, and the level neither drops enough to boil dry nor rises enough to wet it.
- The lid stayed on. Every lift costs the chamber its heat, and the number of lifts should be as close to none as the dish allows.
- Lifted out, the surface is glossy and plump with its colour heightened rather than dulled: greens brighter than they went in, not olive.
- Cooked through with the shape intact: it yields at the centre without having slumped or split, and there is no more than a spoonful of clean condensate beneath it.
Where it goes wrong The lid was loose or dripping and the condensate fell back onto the food, so it arrives waterlogged and pale with its seasoning washed down into the bottom of the dish.
At the Table
- The Pour
- Sauternes
- Also Right
- Demi-sec Champagne
- From the Taps
- Belgian tripel
- Zero-Proof
- Jasmine tea
The sweetness rule is absolute: the pour must be sweeter than the plate, and acid keeps it from cloying.
Saved on this device and kept across visits: export from My Menu to move them.