My holiday plum pudding

So I did what I do when I want to make something new.  I got out a load of books from my library, the old family recipes, and my historical cookbooks.  This is the recipe I came up with.  It's a lot more flexible than most, but I've made it a few times and it is amazing!  Someone asked for it on reddit, but the post ended up being too long so I decided to share it here.  

Variations of the pudding go back a few thousand years so the recipes are more of a guide and it's okay to adjust it to your tastes.  If you want the full Dickens pudding, go with brandy and suet as they would be staple ingredients this time of year.  If you can, get the shredded suet from one of the small butchers rather than the commercial stuff as that has a few extra ingredients in it and often doesn't taste as fresh.

This is close to the Victorian Pudding.  The recipe is heavily influenced by the family recipe which comes to us from the late Victorian period, but with more flexibility because dry fruit is expensive.  Apricots, raisins, and plums are my favourite mix.  Dates go well in it too.  But traditionally, people would use what they had to hand.  

It's usually made a month in advance, kept at room temp to cure, and boiled for one hour before serving.  I've read suggestions that this will keep 13 months at room temp, but I always eat it way before that.



The day before the big boil
- >500g dry fruit
- <100g candy peal (if you can't get it, chop up the peal of an organic orange or blood orange or leave it out)
- <100g candy cherries
- 150-200ml brandy

Mix together, cover with a cloth, and leave 12-48 hours, stirring at least once every 12 hours.

On the day
- 1 cup flour
- 2 tsp baking powder (optional,  but I like the flavour and texture it adds)
- >100g bread crumbs
- 150g ground or shredded suet
- 1 tsp each spices of your choice (the more the better - chinamon, cloves, ginger, etc... adjust to your taste)
- pinch salt
- <150g brown sugar
- 1 apple or quince cored, peeled and grated
- 3-5 eggs
- zest and juice of an orange (optional - organic if possible)

Mix dry together.  Mix wet into dry.  Add soaked fruit.  Hold back the liquor and add as needed for texture.  It should be a very thick batter.  The batter to fruit ratio is roughly equal.

Now, this is very important if you are going for the Victorian traditions - everyone in the household has to have a good old stir.  Wishing is traditional.  

Wrap in pudding cloth (tightly woven cotton that has been recently boiled and rubbed with oil and flour on the inside) or into a pudding mould.   I don't put trinkets in my pudding as I don't want anyone to break a tooth, but now's the time to do it.  Be sure to boil the trinkets well to clean them first.  

Now to steam or boil the pudding.   Either is fine for this one, but if you are steaming maybe add another hour or two.  If you want to go full traditional, we'll boil it in a cloth.

Lightly boil a large square (about 2' per side) of tightly woven cotton or linen.  While wet and hot, place it wrong-side-up on a clean counter and rub some oil into the cloth (concentrate on the centre) then sprinkle some flour on top of the oiled cloth.  Turn the batter onto the cloth and tie it up with some string.  Place gently into a large pot of boiling water and boil for 6-8 hours (you can't over boil) being sure to check the water frequently if it needs topping up.

Alternatively, if you have a pressure cooker, it takes about an hour and a half at high pressure, slow release.  

When cooked, remove from the water and allow to cool.  Hang in a dark place until the feast day.  Then boil for one hour before serving.  



Do you have a favourite holiday dessert recipe you love?  Want to share?

Another delightful Christmas pudding recipe

r ranson wrote:So I did what I do when I want to make something new.  I got out a load of books from my library, the old family recipes, and my historical cookbooks.  This is the recipe I came up with.  It's a lot more flexible than most, but I've made it a few times and it is amazing!  Someone asked for it on reddit, but the post ended up being too long so I decided to share it here.  

Variations of the pudding go back a few thousand years so the recipes are more of a guide and it's okay to adjust it to your tastes.  If you want the full Dickens pudding, go with brandy and suet as they would be staple ingredients this time of year.  If you can, get the shredded suet from one of the small butchers rather than the commercial stuff as that has a few extra ingredients in it and often doesn't taste as fresh.

This is close to the Victorian Pudding.  The recipe is heavily influenced by the family recipe which comes to us from the late Victorian period, but with more flexibility because dry fruit is expensive.  Apricots, raisins, and plums are my favourite mix.  Dates go well in it too.  But traditionally, people would use what they had to hand.  

It's usually made a month in advance, kept at room temp to cure, and boiled for one hour before serving.  I've read suggestions that this will keep 13 months at room temp, but I always eat it way before that.



The day before the big boil
- >500g dry fruit
- <100g candy peal (if you can't get it, chop up the peal of an organic orange or blood orange or leave it out)
- <100g candy cherries
- 150-200ml brandy

Mix together, cover with a cloth, and leave 12-48 hours, stirring at least once every 12 hours.

On the day
- 1 cup flour
- 2 tsp baking powder (optional,  but I like the flavour and texture it adds)
- >100g bread crumbs
- 150g ground or shredded suet
- 1 tsp each spices of your choice (the more the better - chinamon, cloves, ginger, etc... adjust to your taste)
- pinch salt
- <150g brown sugar
- 1 apple or quince cored, peeled and grated
- 3-5 eggs
- zest and juice of an orange (optional - organic if possible)

Mix dry together.  Mix wet into dry.  Add soaked fruit.  Hold back the liquor and add as needed for texture.  It should be a very thick batter.  The batter to fruit ratio is roughly equal.

Now, this is very important if you are going for the Victorian traditions - everyone in the household has to have a good old stir.  Wishing is traditional.  

Wrap in pudding cloth (tightly woven cotton that has been recently boiled and rubbed with oil and flour on the inside) or into a pudding mould.   I don't put trinkets in my pudding as I don't want anyone to break a tooth, but now's the time to do it.  Be sure to boil the trinkets well to clean them first.  

Now to steam or boil the pudding.   Either is fine for this one, but if you are steaming maybe add another hour or two.  If you want to go full traditional, we'll boil it in a cloth.

Lightly boil a large square (about 2' per side) of tightly woven cotton or linen.  While wet and hot, place it wrong-side-up on a clean counter and rub some oil into the cloth (concentrate on the centre) then sprinkle some flour on top of the oiled cloth.  Turn the batter onto the cloth and tie it up with some string.  Place gently into a large pot of boiling water and boil for 6-8 hours (you can't over boil) being sure to check the water frequently if it needs topping up.

Alternatively, if you have a pressure cooker, it takes about an hour and a half at high pressure, slow release.  

When cooked, remove from the water and allow to cool.  Hang in a dark place until the feast day.  Then boil for one hour before serving.  



Do you have a favourite holiday dessert recipe you love?  Want to share?

What type of flour do you usually use?
I can give you a banana pudding recipe that you might enjoy:

Ingredients:

1 (14-ounce) can of sweetened condensed milk
1 1/2 cups cold water
1 (3.4-ounce) package of instant vanilla pudding mix
3 cups heavy whipping cream, whipped
1 (11-ounce) box of vanilla wafers
4-5 ripe bananas, sliced
Additional vanilla wafers and banana slices for garnish (optional)
Instructions:

In a large mixing bowl, whisk together sweetened condensed milk and water until well combined.
Add in instant vanilla pudding mix and whisk until smooth and thickened, about 2 minutes.
In a separate bowl, whip heavy cream until stiff peaks form.
Fold whipped cream into the pudding mixture until well combined.
In a 9x13 inch baking dish, layer vanilla wafers on the bottom.
Add a layer of sliced bananas on top of the vanilla wafers.
Pour half of the pudding mixture on top of the bananas.
Repeat the layers: vanilla wafers, bananas, and pudding mixture.
Cover with plastic wrap and chill in the fridge for at least 4 hours (or overnight).
Before serving, garnish with additional vanilla wafers and banana slices if desired.

What type of flour do you use?

I always use plain flour in my christmas pudding, and ground almonds - no baking powder, I think the breadcrumbs give it texture, so a wholemeal bread I find better for the bread crumbs. It also has apples and carrots in it. I'll see if I can dig it out for you.

All purposes flour,  or no additive white if I can get it.  There is already a lot of fibre in the pudding with the fruit so I want to avoid adding any extra.

In Europe, cake or bread flour might be the way to go.

But I've also used other flours, and one year I used oats I powdered in the blender.   If there isn't enough gluten,  I add an extra egg or flaxseed to help hold it together.

I've been prompted to dig out my recipe, so here goes:

This is from the Pudding Club book. (If you are into British puddings it has some nice authentically stodgy recipes in it!) I had to adapt it because the first time I made it, despite claiming to serve 4-6, it made 6 pints!! We usually make one big pudding and one small pudding, so my version makes about 3 pints (UK)

1 1/4 lb mixed dried fruit (vine fruits - try 12 Oz currants, 4 Oz raisins and 4 Oz sultanas if mixed fruit is not a thing near you)
4 Oz cooked prunes coarsely chopped (I use tinned)
4 Oz breadcrumbs (I just cut up our normal bread, wholemeal is fine)
1 large cooking apple: peeled and grated. (Bramley is the traditional apple in the UK, but it probably doesn't matter)
1 Oz blanched chopped almonds (Flaked is fine)
1 teasp mixed spice
finely grated rind and juice of 1 lemon and 1 orange
4 Oz soft brown sugar
4 Oz glace cherrries (more than the original says. I often use dried sour cherries because I prefer the flavour, but the glace give a lovely candy bit in the pudding)
1 carrot peeled and grated
2 Oz ground almonds
2 Oz plain flour
1/2 teasp powdered cinnamon
1/2 teasp freshly ground nutmeg
4 Oz shredded suet (I've made it with vege suet like coconut oil and it works fine)
1/2 teasp salt
4 fl Oz Stout (like Guinness)
1/2 sherry glass brandy (maybe 4 tblsp?)
2 medium eggs, beaten

Mix all the ingredients together and stir well (make a wish!) stand overnight. Put in a pudding bowl and cover with greaseproof paper. Steam 4pt for 10 hours, 2pt for 6 hours and 1pt for 4 hours. I don't think you can steam for too long - it might possibly go soggy with the water in time...
Reheat on the day by steaming for 2, 1 and 3/4 hour respectively. This makes a very soft rich pudding. We usually have it with cream, but brandy butter, or brandy sauce is also a thing. I never bother with the flaming thing either...

My mum always put silver threepenny bits in the pudding (kept specially, since I only remember post decimal currency) I use a silver sixpence, a ring and a glass button (fortune, love and luck), but don't always put them in.

Thank you so much, Nancy, for sharing your recipe. I really appreciate it.
From Wyoming, USA

I hope you enjoy it. Let me know if anything appears not to have translated into American. As r. ranson says in the OP you can really adapt the recipe to what suits you. I find it will keep quite well covered in a cool cupboard if we don't finish it all over the Yule season.

Steaming my pudding in a cloth this year. I'm a bit late making it....and forgot the charms!

I used the apron I made in first year at secondary school - it has a nice fine weave and the tiebacks make a handy tie to make it into a  bag. I rarely use it as a pinny as it I don't feel it covers enough.

Nancy Reading wrote:Steaming my pudding in a cloth this year. I'm a bit late making it....and forgot the charms!

I normally make it at the beginning of December, but couldn't be bothered this year.  Instead my 14 year old son made it yesterday with our newly repaired Kitchenaid.  Looking forward to eating it, especially as I didn't have to make it :)

Has anyone else already converted these to American baking measurements?

Thank you R for starting this thread with your detailed post, and sharing the traditions…
And thanks everyone else for your variations.

What immediately came to my mind when I read that it’s made a month or more ahead of the feast day, is what a great group activity for a gathering!

Around here, the library often sponsors classes on what ever subject there is a potential teacher for.

This seems a wonderful tradition to reintroduce.  I will want to practice first, and I am wondering what ever will I do with all the practice puddings!  

Compost pile?  Chickens?  Oh!  I know.  We have a mild (ish) winter and a lenient policy and therefore a large homeless population!  Plenty of recipients for pudding gifting.

Could also be done with a group of responsible and well behaved children.  Our very small town elementary school is a Montessori school.  I wonder…

But all this imagining where I could take the process is a little premature…  I better get back to the recipes, and make a shopping list before I do any more dreaming

A traditional pudding lasts 13 months at room temperature.  So, one a month?  

I was eating my practice puddings well into spring.

The family fruitcake recipe is sometimes make is also made well in advance...I remember my mother kept them in a broken autoclave in the garage (she was a nurse, so had access to some items that would have been scrapped otherwise).  Of course, if one wants to drizzle them with rum regularly, you need to keep the cakes more accessible.

This "recipe" is just a list of ingredients on a recipe card, so I work from childhood memories and strive to remember / enhance my process as needed.  The recipe came from a paternal great aunt and my mother was the only one she shared it with.  It is one of the special recipe cards I have as it is written out by my mother's hand.  In January it will be 28 years since she passed.  

A Christmas fruitcake is essentially a spice cake with a bunch of fruit in it.  I think that many people dislike the idea is that so many commercial fruitcakes are spice cakes with a pittance of fruit.  Ours effectively winds up close to half fruit and almonds with cake holding it together.

That reminds me that I think there is one in the freezer that we neglected to take out...the volume made from the recipe makes enough for us for a couple years so I'm not absolutely certain...time to finish typing and head to the freezer.

I'm making a weird variant after reading this, out of what I happen to have at hand.
The cake will be baked today or tomorrow, I have a batch of a REALLY good rice and grains mix cooked in the fridge, and it's all small grains. Anyone ever added this sort of thing to plum pudding? Or any steamed pudding? I have never made one at all. Just have some excellent rice mix in there. It'll get used tonight or tomorrow if not in this.
Mom is calling this "fridge clean out pudding" already :D

Pearl, I have never made a boiled or steamed pudding, or a fruit cake.  Is that what the plum pudding is?  A fruitcake?

As for rice and small grains, rice pudding comes to mind which I love… kind of baked custard with precooked rice and raisins and whatever the cook wants to include.  It wouldn’t add gluten to trap air or baking powder generated gas bubbles.  Is density a consideration for you?  Personally, I would try it.

r ranson wrote:A traditional pudding lasts 13 months at room temperature.  So, one a month?  
I was eating my practice puddings well into spring.

I've eaten bought Christmas puds 10 or more YEARS old! Made with palm oil though.
Has anyone tried these recipes cooked in a microwave, to save on energy?
While living in London bakeries sold a dense cake called bread pudding, made from yesterday's unsold bread etc, soaked in water, with added fruit and spices. Very like a Christmas pud but baked.

I wonder how one can simulate 6 to 8 hours boiling in a microwave?   Im hopeless as I've broken just about every microwave I tried to use.  I even read the manual once to see if there was a trick to not breaking it.  It didn't work.  But there was warning about having it on too long.

Boiling water, most of the energy goes into getting it up to temp, keeping it that high takes little energy.

Energy saving,  the pressure cooker won by a long way. the electric one is insulated and took less energy to get up to temp than the kettle.  Because of the pressure, it was only boiling for an hour and a half and takes only a trickle to keep it up to temp..

When R Ranson wants to make something, she reads recipes. When I do, I say "hmm, what have I got around?"  Plum pudding is no exception.

Ingredients I used:
Ginger
Star anise
Licorice root
Cloves
Dried orange peel
Red Chile
Cinnamon
Anise
Raisins
Dried plums
Canned pineapple
Frozen cherries
2 limes
A jar of "Bright Jam" that didn't set up
Canned beets
Canned carrots
Kahlua
Cherry mead
_________
Whole  wheat flour
White flour
Serious whole grain dry bread crumbs
Baking powder
Brown sugar
Salt
Melted coconut oil
Eggs

The stuff above the line got stirred a couple of times and left in the fridge for 3 or 4 days.
I ended up with a lot of batter, double batch, basically, so I broke it into two cakes. I had issues.... the cloths I had found and boiled were too big, about 24x24. LOTS of excess fabric....

The one that got steamed

One went into a pressure cooker... but it flipped over in cooking due to the weight of the knotted cloth,cooked up well, but it broke, then got wet when I tried to get it out and flipped it over into the water.... I put it into a bowl in the oven the next day, dried it out, and we are eating it. It's excellent! Still pretty high proof, but oooh, lovely flavor!!

The one that broke, won't get aged, we are eating it, YUM

The other got steamed in a cloth lined bowl. It came out lovely! But to keep the knots off it I had to make a mess of clothes hanger wire to hold it up, and use rocks to hold the lid down. Looked like the aliens for War of the Worlds were on the stove. Low tech improvisation for the win!

There was an alien on the stove!

It came out perfect and got hung to age in the garage.

Hanging to age

My takeaway: Interesting way to make a fruit cake! I do better with steaming it in a bowl, and I need to use smaller cloth.
And OOOOH, YUMMY!!  :D

I'm curious now about steaming other things. I saw mention on another thread about meat pies, I may have to try that. It IS an interesting cooking technique!

Thanks for the inspiration R Ranson!!  :D