It’s with considerable honour I feel as the baton of responsibility for the family Christmas pudding is passed onto me. The family trusts, or perhaps even enjoys my food. They’ve motivated me through disasters, and of course, shared the triumphs too. Luckily, when I tried my Nan’s pudding recipe for the first time, it turned out beautifully.
As usual, I felt the need to play with the recipe. And you should too!
More Rum
You’ll see in the ingredients list below that this recipe calls for ½ pint rum. That’s about a metric cup. I soaked all the fruit in the rum overnight, and those boozy bastards drank it all! So… I thought, let’s add another ½ cup. Can’t hurt.
Well, these fruit are very thirsty as I discovered! I kept adding rum over the next few days until I’d reached the end of my bottle of Bundaberg Rum.
Spices Are More Potent Now
According to Nan, our mixed spice is much stronger than it used to be. I suspect this is because we’re better at storing it now, and we use it faster. So she said I might want to reduce the quantity.
I’m really fond of mixed spice, or any spice, so I tripled the quantity, or there abouts. I just kept adding it to the mix until it tasted great.
Ingredients
- 1lb Breadcrumbs
- ¼lb Plain flour
- 1lb Butter
- 8 Eggs
- 2lb Sultanas
- 1lb Raisins
- ½lb Mixed peel
- ¼lb Brown sugar
- 1tsp Mixed spice
- 1tsp Ginger
- 1tsp Nutmeg
- ½pt Brandy or Rum
Method
- Soak fruit overnight in Rum
- Cream butter & sugar
- Add eggs one at a time, and very slowly
- Add flour & spices, ginger & nutmeg
- Add breadcrumbs
- Add fruit, mix until combined
- Pour into a big and little pudding container. Steam the big one for 4 hours. Steam the little one for 2 hours.
