Is it too late to make a Christmas pudding for this year?

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Is it ok to have a 'young' pudding? I've left it too late - life got in the way - and I've got the fruit steeping now but no pudding made. Will I have to store this one for next year and buy one for this Christmas? Or will it be alright made only 2 weeks before? Any experience or advice, please?

It'll be absolutely fine! Definitely go ahead & make it.

It’ll be fine - we’re making ours at the weekend (although we don’t like a ‘boozy’ one anyway)

Your half way there op. Imo home made will taste better. Go for it.

Check food section on bbc or bbcgoodfood.com. There will be recipes for a young pudding for sure.

A young pud is perfectly ok, but I'd make 3 times the quantity of mix and store the spare puddings. Just make sure they are perfectly dry before you store them and keep topping them up with booze. We have a four year old one this year

When I had to make things like Christmas pudding or Christmas cake at short notice I replace about half of the dried fruit with m mincemeat. I also add some juice to the soaking alcohol and simmer the dried fruit until it is absorbed. The results are beautifully moist and do not need feeding. You still can, of course, if you like them boozy.

Thanks all, I'll take the pudding plunge tomorrow!

I do try to make extra every year (or rather, I follow a recipe that makes loads), but they never last. I end up giving them away. I think once I did manage to keep one for a year, but I didn't remember it by the next year and made a new one anyway.

Prue Leiths microwave Christmas pudding is excellent and can be made on the day. Ignore the whole candied orange part.

Interesting re feeding - how does that work?

I feed my Christmas cake, which is a solid cake obviously! So that works.

I've never heard of feeding a pudding - the boiled pudding is still quite soft / moist, before being finally boiled on Christmas Day (or whenever it's used) - how does feeding it work in the case? The puddings I make, family recipe, are all tightly sealed with grease proof paper, and string plus a lid. The point is to keep them air free as much as possible.

They freeze well and keep well otherwise for about a year.

I only feed the puddings once after cooking them. When the puddings have cooled, I remove the greaseproof paper 'lid', inject a generous amount of booze, put on a fresh lid, wrap and put aside to age.

Late-notice puddings made with mincemeat: no feeding at all as they're already very moist.

Puddings made in autumn: one feeding as above.

Puddings made last year: one feeding as above, and another on Christmas Eve at unwrapping time if they have shrunk over the year.

I don't freeze them, either. They keep very well just tightly wrapped in the back of a cupboard, slowly ageing and maturing.

Thanks @Dilbertian that's interesting.

I find that puddings I make (same recipe used by my mum & my Grandma before that) last well for up to a year, as long as well wrapped / cool place. Beyond that they don't - they just kind of decompose.

It's interesting to hear about your approach & great to have puddings that last & mature so well!

My starting point is Delia's recipe, and then I adventure on...

Two puddings made and stored, hurrah! Unfortunately we now have a house full of covid so I don't know who'll be around to eat them, but hopefully we'll all get it and recover before Christmas (unlike last Christmas where we each got it one at a time in succession so we spent about 6 weeks with someone positive).

I use Nigella's recipe because I'm allergic to nuts so I need one that's just fruit. It's usually lovely. Let's see if this year's late start has any deleterious effects.

I’ve never ‘fed’ my puddings, and the only booze they contain is brown ale. It’s an old GH recipe, and always brilliant. TBH although I’m very far from being a teetotaller, I do prefer them un-heavily-boozed.

The lavish mix of 50/50 brandy and vodka for flaming them is of course a very different matter. 🙂🎄