What do you mean Christmas is only four weeks away!!

Our Christmas pudding was made in November,

All they put in it, I quite well remember:

Currants and raisins, and sugar and spice,

Orange peel, lemon peel—everything nice

Mixed up together, and put in a pan.

Charlotte Druitt Cole

It’s about this time of year I start to feel a little bit festive, Thanksgiving is over, (Happy Thanksgiving to all my friends in the US!), it’s getting a little bit colder and the days are getting really short now so, it’s time to sprinkle a little festive joy around! This weekend I’ll be doing a couple of things, the Christmas tree and decorations will be coming out of the loft and I’ll make both my Christmas cake and my Christmas pudding.

Now, I’ve spoken about my Christmas cake before so, it’s time to introduce you to my Christmas pudding recipe. When it comes to traditional Christmas recipes I turn to one of two people, the wonderful Dame Mary Berry or the delicious Nigella Lawson, both have fabulous Christmas pudding recipes and I tend to rotate between them, this year it’s Nigella’s turn!

Now I know making a Christmas pudding is a bit of a faff and you can buy some brilliant commercial puddings from places like Waitrose or even Harvey Nichols however, there’s something wonderful about sitting down after your turkey, roasties and sprouts to enjoy a pudding you’ve made!

The thing I love most about this recipe is that the dried fruit isn’t dry thanks to the fruit being steeped in Pedro Ximenez for anything up to a week, Nigella recommends a steeping time of twenty-four hours to a week. I’m not sure if it’s this process or maybe some of the other ingredients but, it makes the final result light and fluffy, not something you really associate with Christmas pudding ordinarily!

Ingredients

150 grams/1¼ cups currants

150 grams /1 cup sultanas

150 grams /1 cup roughly chopped Medjool dates, (this is where Nigella and I differ slightly, she uses Prunes however, I find prunes can be a bit hit and miss, some can be quite bitter!)

175 millilitres/¾ cup Pedro Ximenes sherry

100 grams/⅔ cup plain flour

125 grams/2⅓ cups fresh breadcrumbs

150 grams/14 tablespoons coarsely grated vegetable shortening (freeze overnight to make it easier to grate)

150grams/¾ cup dark brown muscovado sugar

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

¼ teaspoon ground cloves

1 teaspoon baking powder

grated zest of 1 lemon

3 large eggs

1 medium cooking apple (peeled and grated)

2 tablespoons honey

125/½ cup millilitres vodka (to flame the pudding)

(The cups are US cups as opposed to Aussie cups)

Method

You will need a 1.7 litre/3 pint/1½ quart heatproof plastic pudding basin with a lid, and also a sprig of holly to decorate.

Put the currants, golden raisins and scissored pitted prunes into a bowl with the Pedro Ximénez, swill the bowl a bit, then cover with clingfilm and leave to steep overnight or for up to 1 week.

When the fruits have had their steeping time, put a large pan of water on to boil, or heat some water in a conventional steamer, and butter your heatproof plastic pudding basin (or basins), remembering to grease the lid, too.

In a large mixing bowl, combine all the remaining pudding ingredients (except the vodka), either in the traditional manner or just any old how; your chosen method of stirring, and who does it, probably won’t affect the outcome of your wishes or your Christmas.

Add the steeped fruits, scraping in every last drop of liquor with a rubber spatula, and mix to combine thoroughly, then fold in cola-cleaned coins or heirloom charms. If you are at all frightened about choking-induced fatalities at the table, do leave out the hardware!

Scrape and press the mixture into the prepared pudding basin, squish it down and put on the lid. Then wrap with a layer of foil (probably not necessary, but I do it as I once had a lid-popping and water-entering experience when steaming a pudding) so that the basin is watertight, then either put the basin in the pan of boiling water (to come halfway up the basin) or in the top of a lidded steamer and steam for 5 hours, checking every now and again that the water hasn’t bubbled away.

When it’s had its 5 hours, remove gingerly (you don’t want to burn yourself) and, when manageable, unwrap the foil, and put the pudding in its basin somewhere out of the way in the kitchen or, if you’re lucky enough, a larder, until Christmas Day.

On the big day, rewrap the pudding (still in its basin) in foil and steam again, this time for 3 hours. Eight hours combined cooking time might seem a faff, but it’s not as if you need to do anything to it in that time.

To serve, remove from the pan or steamer, take off the lid, put a plate on top, turn it upside down and give the plastic basin a little squeeze to help unmould the pudding. Then remove the basin – and voilà, the Massively Matriarchal Mono Mammary is revealed. (Did I forget to mention the Freudian lure of the pudding beyond its pagan and Christian heritage?)

Put the sprig of holly on top of the dark, mutely gleaming pudding, then heat the vodka in a small pan (I use my diddy copper butter-melting pan) and the minute it’s hot, but before it boils – you don’t want the alcohol to burn off before you attempt to flambé it – turn off the heat, strike a match, stand back and light the pan of vodka, then pour the flaming vodka over the pudding and take it as fast as you safely can to your guests. If it feels less dangerous to you, pour the hot vodka over the pudding and then light the pudding. In either case, don’t worry if the holly catches alight; I have never known it to be anything but singed.

Serve with the Eggnog Cream, which you can easily make - it's the work of undemanding moments or try Nigella’s Brandy Butter, recipe here while the pudding's steaming.

Although Nigella stipulates a capacious 1.7 litre/3 pint/1½ quart basin, she suggests, quite rightly, that she knows that you’re unlikely to get through most of it, even half of it, at one sitting. But she loves the leftover dishes you can make with it, try it microwaved in portions after or between meals, with leftover Eggnog Cream, or fried in butter and eaten with vanilla ice cream for completely off-the-chart, feasts. But it wouldn’t be out of the question – and it would certainly be in the spirit of the season – to make up the entire quantity of mixture, and share between smaller ba

sins – a 2 pint/1 quart one for you, a 1 pint/½ quart one to give away. Three hours’ steaming both first and second time around should do it; just keep the one pudding for yourself, and the others make fabulous gifts for friends and relations! Make sure you give it after it’s had its first steaming, and include the steaming instructions for Christmas Day!

What’s on this week?