Your best recipes & tips for home-made Christmas pudding

[PassTheAfterEights]

please!

Planning to tackle next Sunday with delivery of a few Mason Cash bowls next week (what size? 20cm feels about right?)

Whose recipe is best? Mary / Nigella / Jamie / olde worlde bloggers?

How to reheat on the day - do they need to be steamed again or will a microwave do?

What else should I know?

TIA! x

And thank you so much for the recipe, @Proseccoagain - I might actually make a pudding this year, rather than buying one.

I use a great old Good Housekeeping cookbook recipe. I don’t use a pudding basin, instead I place the pudding mixture in a floured muslin and shape into a ball, tie with string and hang on a long handled wooden spoon resting over a huge pan with boiled water in the bottom to steam and cover the pan with foil. When done I cool then rewrap in a fresh muslin and tie and store in the fridge ready to be steamed again on Christmas Day. It tastes amazing and I love the old fashioned round shape. I always put a large sprig of fresh holly on the top and warm brandy from an unopened bottle and it lights beautifully with huge blue flames.

Ooooh love the fancaaaaay round muslin pud @funtimesinbabylon so so impressed!!

All these olde worlde family heirloom / antique cookbook recipe holders... please feel very free to post a pic or (if too much pudding related time on your hands like me) type out for us..!?

whispers lining up for a stir-up-Sunday-cookalong on the 25th.....

second @theorigbrave q re keeping bowled pud before first steam - anyone? I mean assume it will be fine to sit in the fridge for a day or two since the fruit alone might by then have been soaking in booze for a week? Just the egg to be mindful of?

It's not as heavy and dark as some.

I prefer a steamed pudding to a microwaved one. A microwaved pud is OK immediately after it is made but does not re-heat well.
I make Delia's every year, It is the bees' knees.
The secret to a light pudding is to make sure that your seal is absolutely air/water-tight. I put tinfoil over the pudding bowl and hold it in place with string. No matter what you do, the string will never be tight enough; it will gap a little. Slip a matchstick in the gap and carefully rotate the matchstick round and it will wind the string tighter for you.

Delia recommends that you make the pud and then leave overnight so that the breadcrumbs can absorb the moisture.

My puddings are steaming at this very moment! I'm using the recipe in the Guardians 'How to cook the perfect' series. Link www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/wordofmouth/2016/nov/17/how-to-cook-the-perfect-christmas-pudding

No idea how it will taste, so you'll have to wait until Xmas for the verdict.

OOh, still have on more to steam and will use the matchstick trick Senua

One more

I miss searching out the "how to cook the perfect..." series but I'm on a Grauniad online boycott because of their trans position.

Some past pudding pics 😋

Homemade brandy butter is also really easy to make and sooo tasty!

Does the container (or muslin) material make a difference to the way it is cooked/moist etc?

I'm wondering if mine will be any different if I change from using Pyrex bowl to a ceramic one.

Fantastic montage @FunTimesInBabylon

Thanks Sylvester

When I make Christmas Pudding in a ceramic basin they can come out denser and neater but I prefer the steaming through the muslin as the texture is more moist, but they are harder to keep the shape. I’m not a fan of it being too dense, rich or dry like the supermarket ones can be. I’ve not tried doing it in a Pyrex bowl as I’ve got a ceramic basin that looks pretty.

I also wrap my pudding in muslin and boil. Then the pud hangs for a few weeks before being reboiled on Christmas Day

I use an old recipe from my mother. I hate a heavy pudding and this one has no flour, making it lighter. It has never gone wrong for me. We ate one last from last year, last Sunday. Yum.

But for everything else, all hail Queen Delia. Her mincemeat is gorgeous. But word to the wise, if you ever make it, you will be cursed with never being able to use shop-bought mincemeat again!

Will it be OK to keep the mix for a few days? In the fridge, or just somewhere cool?

I've done this, leaving it outside (in a large Tupperware box) for about two weeks. It worked for me!

Another question: has anyone ever tried the hidden orange in the middle? Or is it too gimmicky?

Me: [excitement oozing from my every pore] do you want to help me make the Xmas pud?
DS2 (age 9): No.

cancels Christmas

Hedge thank you.
Dare I ask why you abandoned your mixture for 2 weeks?!

"Boil it, boil it, boil it some more. And then boil it again.

The next day do the same.

Then a bit more boiling."

and that is one of the reasons I buy a pudding. I am not prepared to turn my kitchen into a sauna, and risk wrecking a pan because it has boiled dry. So I cheat and buy a pudding. I quite like a little bit of Christmas pudding, but they all taste the same to me (ducks)

Maybe I'll try the muslin thing this year. Do you submerge the whole thing in boiling (simmering I assume?) water? How do you make sure there are absolutely no leaks from where you tie it?

Can I use a regular (unused) baby's muslin?

I'm loving all the Christmas Pud enthusiasm! I got my cake made this week and I can't wait to get feeding it over the next few weeks.

Homemade brandy butter is also really easy to make and sooo tasty!

But is it as easy to make as vodka margarine? >_>

www.youtube.com/watch?reload=9&v=fSjRhIZGfg0

Dare I ask why you abandoned your mixture for 2 weeks?!
Because I work full time and I was making multiple puddings with a limited number of vessels in which to steam... and I might have forgotten about a couple of them...