Christmas Pudding - do you make your own?

[lilibet]

I never have , but this year my 14 year old dd wants to have a go at making one. Whose recipie do you use and does anyone have any useful hints?

the website www.cooks.com is amazing - it has hundreds of recipes for EVERYTHING.

My dad used to make a wonderful one, don't know the recipe but he used to make it and cook it, then put in in the fridge and inject it (yes with a real syringe) with brandy every day! By the time xmas came it was about 30kg and would burst into flames at the first wave of a match!

Nigella does a good one, or check Delia. I didn't find it that hard, actually it's really easy, the biggest hassle was finding a basin to cook it in!!

I use a recipe from an old Sainsbury's microwave cooking book. It's very moist and can be made at the last minute (not actually at lunchtime, you understand, but no need to do it ages before). Let me know if you want the recipe and I'll type it in (gulp).

I know that this is going to be a stupid question, but if you steam it (and microwaving does seema good idea) can it be steamed in my normal steamer that i do my veggies in. Have checked Delia's website and hers needs to be steamed for 8 hours!!

Yes you can use a veggie steamer, but make sure the bowl is well-wrapped.

I use Mrs Beeton's recipe, but i have had to it a bit. The first year I tried it, we had 5 enormous puddings and were still eating the stuff in June.

So maybe best stick with nigella!

I use Delia's recipe, it's great. Rather than steam up the kitchen by cooking it on the hob, I put the pudding bowl into a roasting tin, half fill the tin with hot water, cover the entire thing with foil, tucking it under the edges of the tin as well as poss and VERY CAREFULLY lift it into the oven. It steams away for a few hours and hopefully, you shouldn't need to top up the water.

I use a Keith Floyd recipe. Don't forget if you have a pressure cooker it will do a 2lb pudding in an hour (it's the only thing we use ours for)

I use my mum's recipe. I usually soak the fruit in dark rum, but this year was running low (mysterious evaporation???) and used sherry instead. Made a nice change.

My tip is to always soak the fruit as long as possible. Puddings can't be made as far in advance as cake, but you can freeze some recipes. I usually freeze mine for a couple of weeks but have one left over from last year that tasted fine when we ate it the other weekend.

Other tip is to buy your ingredients now.

You guys are so diligent - I don't even know what goes into Christmas pudding except brandy! Actually I am not that keen on them so I guess that is why we don't even talk about making from scratch. Much prefer Christmas cake - MIL makes a great one.

One word of warning - if possible, avoid using a plastic pudding bowl. It is possible, as long as you keep checking there's enough water in the pan ... but we have had at least 2 Christmas dinners where we had to pick the bits of melted blue plastic off the pudding before eating it . Gives the whole thing a rather interesting aftertaste, to say nothing of the state of the saucepan...

My MIL uses a recipe derived from a wartime version, so it's not nearly as OTT rich as usual. There are never any leftovers - 4 or 6 of us eat the whole one at one sitting! She makes at least 4 puddings every year so that we can all have one. I think it's got things like grated carrots in it as well as the usual fruit and brandy, and it keeps very well - we unearthed one at the back of the larder that was over a year old and it was still perfect.

Most steamed puddings work very well in the pressure cooker, I think you usually steam unpressurised for 20 minutes, then close the vent and steam for 1/3 of the normal cooking time.