Sweet red fruits and a splash of amaretto give this pudding an Italian spin. Soak the fruit the day before – and make sure your pudding basin fits your slow cooker!
Lucy, our former Food Editor creates lots of delicious meals each month. Her recipes are always packed with flavour and they're super easy too!
See more of Lucy Jessop’s recipes
Lucy Jessop
Lucy, our former Food Editor creates lots of delicious meals each month. Her recipes are always packed with flavour and they're super easy too!
See more of Lucy Jessop’s recipes
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Ingredients
200g dried mixed fruit
1 x 100g bag berries and cherries (or use 50g dried cherries, 25g dried cranberries and 25g dried blueberries)
100g natural glacé cherries, quartered
zest and juice of 1 medium orange
50ml amaretto
50ml brandy
100g dark muscovado sugar
1 tsp ground mixed spice
½ tsp ground cinnamon
a generous grating of fresh nutmeg
soft butter, to grease
2 medium eggs, lightly beaten
1 medium Bramley apple, about 225g, cored and grated
100g vegetarian suet
50g blanched almonds, roughly chopped
85g self-raising flour
65g fresh white breadcrumbs
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Step by step
Get ahead
Make the pudding up to the end of step 5 up to 3 months ahead. Store in a cool dry place then reheat as per step 6.
Put all of the dried fruit, glacé cherries, orange zest and juice, amaretto and brandy, sugar and spices in a large bowl. Mix well to combine, cover and set aside overnight or up to a couple of days ahead.
When ready to cook, grease a 1-litre ceramic pudding basin (or Pyrex bowl) with a little butter and line the base with a circle of baking paper. Cut a square of baking paper, about 30cm, and cut the same sized piece of foil. Place the foil shiny-side down on a clean surface and lay the baking paper on top. Grease the baking paper well with butter, then, keeping both together, fold a 3cm pleat into the middle. This allows for expansion during cooking. Switch the slow cooker on to low.
Add the remaining ingredients and a pinch of salt to the soaked fruit and mix thoroughly to combine. Scrape the mixture into the prepared basin and level.
Cover the pudding with the foil and baking paper, buttered-side down, and press around the edges to enclose, while maintaining the pleat. Then secure tightly around the rim with a piece of string – tie twice around the rim of the bowl to make it secure. Trim off the surplus foil and paper, and add a string handle for easy lifting, if your pudding basin has a ridged lip.
Sit the basin inside the slow cooker. Boil the kettle and pour water around the pudding until it comes halfway up. Place the slow-cooker lid on top; it needs to be fully closed, with no gaps. Cook for 10 hours. Remove from the slow cooker and leave to cool completely. Then remove the paper and foil and replace with fresh wrappings, as before, ready for when you want to re-steam and serve. Store in a cool dark place, or the fridge.
On the day you want to serve the pudding, cook in the slow cooker as before, but for 4 hours on the low setting, until piping hot.
We like to serve this with whipped cream spiked with a few tablespoons of amaretto, to taste.
Tip
No slow cooker? Steam the pudding for 4 hrs in step 5 to cook it. To reheat, steam for 1 1⁄2 hrs in step 6.
Christmas Pudding is brought to the table flambéed. To do this, warm a couple of tablespoons of brandy in a small pan, pour it over the hot pudding and (carefully!) set light to it. It will extinguish itself once the alcohol has burned off.
Conclusion: Christmas puddings contain ethanol that does not all evaporate during the cooking process. However, the rise in BAC after ingestion of a typical slice of Christmas pudding was negligible and unlikely to affect work performance or safety or impair a health care worker's ability to make complex decisions.
Sprinkle with Brandy: Before reheating, consider sprinkling some brandy on your pudding. It not only adds flavour but also helps to maintain moisture. Use a Damp Cloth: If you're reheating in the microwave, place a damp cloth over the pudding to keep it moist.
“Figgy pudding is a specific type of Christmas or plum pudding that contains figs as a primary ingredient along with other dried fruits,” Heron says. “However, the name 'figgy pudding' doesn't always mean it exclusively contains figs. It could contain a variety of dried fruits in addition to or alongside figs.
For the pudding and the cake, you could substitute the alcohol with apple, orange, red grape or prune juice. The cake can be made ahead but don't feed it.
A sweet marsala or Madeira wine are good alternatives but if you only have a bottle of rum, whisky or brandy on hand then one of these could also be used.
Can children eat Christmas pudding for having an alcoholic content? Yes. Many foods have traces of alcohol (Ethanol) and many other alcohols can be present in trace amounts. The volume of alcohol in Christmas pudding is not high, even when flambeed and served with Brandy butter or a whisky sauce.
A normal size pudding would be steamed in 3 to 4 hours, but because these pudding are almost 4kg in weight they take a long time to steam. It is almost impossible to overcook this pudding. Make some holes using a skewer or wooden co*cktail stick and add brandy the pudding.
They tend to overheat and get tough & sticky. Steaming lightens the pudding and after taking so much care to make your own pudding it's such a shame to not steam it. Delia doesn't even heat leftover pudding in the microwave.
Follow your recipe for the steaming times of your pudding, but if you do need to check then you can insert a skewer through the foil and parchment to check that it comes out clean. Simply patch up the hole with more foil if your pudding needs more time to steam.
Steam in a steamer – or a saucepan with a saucer, or the lid of a jar, in the bottom – for 4 hours, checking the water level regularly. Store in a cool place until Christmas Day, feeding occasionally with alcohol if you like your puddings boozy.
First off, the English term “pudding” can refer to just about any “dessert”, though “Christmas pudding” is a specific type of dessert, that an American is more likely to call an extreme variant of a “soaked cake” or “brandy cake”.
Rather than creamy puddings and custards, which Southern cooks are familiar with, this Christmas pudding dates back to medieval England and is a steamed cake full of spices, raisins, and currants soaked in brandy. If it contains figs, it is called a figgy pudding.
Irish Christmas Pudding is a traditional fruit/rum cake with a mixture of fruits, spices, brandy, Irish whiskey and even coins… depending on who you're asking! It looks dark and almost chocolately but to the taste, it's rich, intense and aromatic. The cake, and it's baking, is filled with history and superstition.
Final answer: Brandy is the spirit traditionally added to butter and served with Christmas pudding. Known as brandy butter, this customary British accompaniment to Christmas pudding involves creaming butter and sugar together before adding brandy, chilling, and serving atop the dessert.
The flaming brandy is said to represent the passion of Christ. Christmas puddings were traditionally boiled in a “pudding cloth”, although today are usually steamed in a bowl. Presented on the table with a sprig of holly, they are then doused in brandy and set alight.
Best enjoyed in front of roaring fire in the company of great friends. Theakston Legendary BEERD Christmas Ale will bring out the best flavours of almost any food but in particular strong cheeses, desserts including Christmas Pudding, and roast haunches of venison and prime British Beef.
Introduction: My name is Francesca Jacobs Ret, I am a innocent, super, beautiful, charming, lucky, gentle, clever person who loves writing and wants to share my knowledge and understanding with you.
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Prep time: 30 mins
