1800's Old-fashioned Rice Pudding You Tube

Christmas Pudding is an integral part of British Christmas celebrations. Y'all may have seen illustrations in the classic novel, 'A Christmas Carol' by Charles Dickens, depicting a flaming pudding being carried proudly to the table. Similar imagery is still used in advertisements in the United kingdom today. Christmas pudding is still a seriously big bargain over here.

What is Christmas Pudding?

Traditional Christmas Pudding is more like a heavy cake than what you might retrieve of equally a pudding. It is made with raisins and other dried fruit and flavoured with brandy or stout (a very dark beer). Sometimes information technology contains basics every bit well. My husband's family unit recipe does not contain nuts – and woe betide anyone who tries to add them. Believe me, I know!

At the end of Christmas lunch or dinner, the pudding is garnished with holly and doused in brandy which is then lit. Not just does this create a spectacle, it also flavours the pudding.

After the flames get out, the pudding is sliced in small slices (a little goes a long way as it is very rich). It is and then served with brandy custard, brandy butter or cream. ( Please note, holly is poisonous, and should be removed earlier cutting or serving. Even better, use some artificial holly instead! )

Stir Up Sunday

Christmas pudding is traditionally made a few weeks before Christmas, often on Stir Up Sunday.  It is then stored in a cool place for the flavours to develop. This year Stir Upwardly Sunday is Sunday 26th November. While the day is merely tradition, the pudding does need at least two or three weeks to mature.

Anybody in the family unit is meant to have a get at stirring the pudding mixture. Many families will have a recipe they use year on year, and our family is no different. The recipe we utilize comes from my married man'south late step-Grandmother, Dorothy Harris, whom nosotros chosen Nana. It's most as authentically Victorian equally you tin can go. Let me tell you lot why.

Looking for more Christmas treats and recipes?

Authentic Victorian Christmas Pudding

Earlier she married my husband's Grandad Joe, Nana was head cook in a stately home. Joe became a widower when my husband's father was just 3. Nana brought a steadying presence to the then motherless household, along with all her recipes from her days as head cook. Although this would have been in the 1930's, we know Nana inherited the recipe from the previous (long-serving) head cook – so it must be a pretty close approximation of the pudding Charles Dickens describes in 'A Christmas Carol'.

The original recipe makes 4 one pint – or 2 ii pint – puddings, and called for a pound of most of the ingredients. When I make it, I halve the recipe for ease, and this is the recipe I've shared beneath.

A one pint pudding will hands serve 6 to 8 people, perhaps more than if they have eaten a lot of Christmas dinner. If there are only a few of you I suggest y'all choose the option of two smaller 1 pint puddings as they do taste better if they are just re-steamed in one case.

The Christmas Pudding Contest

When Nana and my Mother-in-Law were live, every year there was a Christmas Pudding Competition, initiated by my tardily Begetter-in-Police. Nana and my Mother-in-Law would both brand the same recipe – the one I'm sharing with you today – and we were all given some of each in a blind taste examination. So we had to say which we idea tasted all-time. I found it incredibly stressful, particularly as Nana grew delicate. My Mother-in-Law would try desperately to surreptitiously signal u.s. every bit to which pudding Nana had made and so nosotros would say it was all-time. She had to do this without my Begetter-in-Constabulary seeing, as he took the contest very seriously!

Tips for Making Former-Fashioned Christmas Pudding

At that place are some ingredients in Christmas Pudding which may be unfamiliar. Suet is shredded animal fatty just there are also vegetarian versions available. Suet isn't widely available outside the Britain, but I have heard that you can use grated frozen butter or shortening instead. I haven't tried this just cannot encounter why it wouldn't work.

Mixed spice is a combination of fragrant spices similar cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg and coriander. If you can't buy it locally, yous can make information technology yourself.

It'due south of import to wrap the pudding properly for steaming and storage. The method is described in the recipe below, only here's a helpful video to brand it fifty-fifty more articulate.

Our Family Christmas Pudding Recipe

This recipe is challenging but definitely worth it! It's fun to brand on a rainy day, and a nifty history and cooking project for kids. I like to wrap the presents or do some decorating on the day I make the pudding so I'm close by but doing something productive.

The fruit needs to be soaked over night, and someone has to go on an eye on the pudding for the whole eight hours information technology steams.

It is, however, incredibly satisfying to make. I had such a proud moment when I carried the first Christmas pudding I made to the table. If you really want to experience what Christmas in England is like, in that location just has to be Christmas pudding.

Sometime-Fashioned Christmas Pudding Printable Recipe

Former Fashioned Christmas Pudding

This recipe makes two - one pint (xx ounces each) puddings or one - ii pint (forty ounce) pudding (measures are Royal (British) pints). Each pudding serves 8 to x people.

Course Dessert

Cuisine British

Keyword Christmas, dessert

Prep Time i hr

Melt Time viii hours

Total Fourth dimension 13 hours

Servings 20

• half a lemon, rind and juice
• eight ounces currants
• 8 ounces raisins
• 8 ounces sultanas
• iii ounces brandy
• half an orangish, juiced
• 8 ounces suet
• 8 ounces moist brown saccharide
• viii ounces cooking apples, peeled and grated grate the apples at the last minute or they volition go brown - or toss the grated apple tree in a lilliputian lemon juice to cease this happening
• iv ounces mixed skin also known every bit candy-coated peel, this is widely available in the U.k. and Europe and available in the baking aisles of some North American grocery stores
• four ounces flour
• four eggs
• 4 ounces fresh white breadcrumbs
• ½ teaspoon salt
• ½ teaspoon mixed spice

• Soak the currants, raisins and sultanas in the brandy, lemon and orange juice overnight.

• In the morning, in a seriously large basin, mix the suet, flour, sugar, common salt, spices, mixed peel, breadcrumbs, apples and eggs with the soaked fruit and any juice/liquor remaining in the basin.

• All the ingredients should be included at this signal. Mix thoroughly with a wooden spoon until completely combined.

• Grease i 2 pint pudding bowl or 2 one pint pudding basins.

• Fill up to about three quarters total with this mixture.

• To wrap the pudding for steaming you demand to lay a sheet of aluminium foil over a canvass of greaseproof or waxed paper.

• Selection upwardly both and make a pleat down the eye. Put this on top of your pudding bowl and wrap round firmly.

• And then utilize a long piece of cord to necktie the paper and foil tightly round the bowl, leaving a couple of nice long ends of string.

• Bring the extra cord dorsum up over top of the bowl and tie it under the string on the other side to make a handle and then you lot can get the pudding out of the steamer hands.

• Trim circular the edges of the paper and foil with pair of scissors to ensure that none of it drips into the h2o you will put circular for steaming or it will seep into the pudding and ruin it.

• Y'all need a large steamer or bucket for each pudding bowl – it needs to be much larger than the basin itself. Place a modest heatproof saucer upside down on the bottom of each saucepan, and identify your prepared pudding bowl on top of the saucer.

• Carefully fill the edges of the saucepan with water about half way up the pudding basin. Put the lid on the saucepan.

• Bring the water to a slow boil so the pudding tin steam gradually. You lot will demand to acme upwards the water very regularly (sometimes as often as every xl-five minutes or so) so that the pudding does not boil dry. If it does, the saucer and pudding bowl volition break and all volition be lost.

• Later 8 hours of steaming, remove the saucepan from the heat and let it cool down a bit before carefully removing the pudding from the saucepan using the string handle.

• It's good to have a tea towel close past equally the pudding basin will exist wet.

• Dry out the bowl off, remove the paper, foil and string and sit down the pudding in its bowl on a heat proof surface to cool downward.

• When the pudding and bowl are completely absurd, remove the greaseproof paper and foil and then tie a fresh piece of greaseproof newspaper and foil over them only as earlier.

• The pudding improves with age, so store in a cool place away from draughts until Christmas. (The top of a closet works well.)

• At least two hours earlier your Christmas dinner, repeat the steaming process. To serve the pudding, carefully remove it from the pudding basin (it will exist very hot) past inverting on to a serving plate.

• Traditionally the pudding is flamed, but this step is optional. If you want to flame your Christmas pudding, just pour a small amount (a couple tablespoons) of brandy or vodka over the pudding and light it with a lucifer (be careful and brand sure kids stay well out of the way!)

• When the flames go out, serve the pudding in small slices with brandy butter, cream or custard.

More Christmas Recipes

Traditional Christmas Cake

Orange Gingerbread Crinkle Cookies

Maple Fudge

Mincemeat Oat Squares

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