Better bake than never

Last year I made a Christmas pudding for the first time, and I enjoyed making it – and we enjoyed eating it – so much that I decided to make it a new Christmas tradition in our house. Of course, ideally you want to make your pudding a month or more before Christmas to allow it time to mature, but this year I was too busy and then too sick to bake. And before I knew it here we were with a week to go until C-day and not a pudding in sight.

Yesterday I decided that I wasn’t ready to give up on this new tradition just yet. So I dug out last year’s recipe, and tweaked it a little (of course!). This year, I used the following ingredients:

50g / 2oz Plain Flour
125g / 4oz Brown Sugar
125g / 4oz Margarine
2 Eggs
1 teaspoon Cinnamon
1 packet (375g) Fruit Mix
1 tub (100g) Cherries
1 packet (60g) Chopped Mixed Nuts
125g / 4oz Breadcrumbs
300ml / 1/2 pint Captain Morgan’s Spiced Rum

The Chopped Mixed Nuts are a new addition following a few subtle suggestions from my taste-testers last year! And I like the spiced rum so much in the Banana Bread recipe that I decided to give it a try here instead of the recommended bottle of stout.

I kept with last year’s tradition and got Little Man to stir the mixture. Of course then I had to explain to him why he couldn’t pluck a booze-soaked raisin from the bowl and eat it! He was delighted when we finished and poured the mixture into two 1pt pudding containers.

After leaving them sit for 12 hours, I steamed them for four hours in the oven. They changed to a rich deep golden colour and made the whole house smell delicious!

I’m actually looking forward to tasting them next week. I have a feeling they’ll be quite tasty even without a month to mature. I’ll be sure to report back on the taste test!