December means making plum pudding!
My mum always makes an old fashioned, boiled in the cloth plum pudding. It's the most delicious plum pudding I've ever tasted. It's rich, dense and moist - not cakey like some. This year our family is traveling to Sydney to spend Christmas with my better half and his family. So it finally occurred to me that I would have to make my own plum pudding.
rubbing butter into flour
measuring & grating
mixing
after 6 hours of bubbling away on the stove....it's hanging to dry...and the big question is....will it turn out like this:
fingers crossed!
If there is anyone out there who would like to give this pudding a go, the recipe is below:
Christmas Pudding
3 cups plain flour
1 teaspoon mixed spice
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
225g butter
450g sultanas
450g raisins
450g currants
grated rind of two oranges
1 carrot grated
1 granny smith apple peeled and grated
1 cup brown sugar
6 eggs
2 teaspoons of lemon juice
2 teaspoons parisian essence
1/2 cup brandy
Sift flour and spices into a large bowl. Rub in butter with fingertips.
Add dried fruit, orange rind, carrot, apple and sugar.
Beat eggs with lemon juice and parisian essence. Stir into dry ingredients alternately with brandy. Mixture should be "dropping" consistency.
Boil in a cloth or pudding basin for 6 hours. Hang to dry overnight. Store in Fridge or freezer. On Christmas Day boil again for 1 hour, remove from pot and remove cloth immediately. Serve flamed with brandy and add custard.
To boil in cloth:
Take a large square of calico, cover with boiling water and boil for a few minutes. Wearing rubber gloves to wring cloth out immediately and clover cloth with plain flour, enough to coat the calico. Pat flour into cloth. Gently shake off any excess. Place cloth in a colander or large basin. Add pudding mixture. Pull up corners of calico and gather in to make the pudding a nice round shape, leaving room for expansion. Tie securely with a string around the top, adding a loop of string to remove pudding from pot and to hang on broom handle to dry. (I placed the broom handle across two bar stools). Make sure the wet corners of the calico are kept up out of the way when drying.
NOTE: Keep the water level in the pot topped up with extra boiling water during the cooking process. This is important...don't leave the house! It's also a good idea to place an old saucer on the bottom of the saucepan to keep the pudding from touching the bottom. This mixture will require you to use a very large bowl when mixing the ingredients and a large saucepan to boil the pudding in.
take care...Di
