For we all like figgy pudding

[strange_complex]

I spent the weekend sleeping, marking, and making Christmas pudding. Since I don't do proper cookery very often, and indeed have never made a Christmas pudding before, I took a few pictures of the process:

Sixpences boiling merrily on the stove	Some (but not all) of the ingredients
The mixture at the 'dry' stage	Stale bread waiting to be grated into breadcrumbs
The complete mixture being stirred	Puddings steaming on the stove
Completed puddings	Completed puddings 2

It was fun to do, and the steaming process in particular transformed the kitchen into a kind of orange-and-cinnamon flavoured sauna which it was very tempting to just stay in all weekend while the marking lay unattended in the lounge. It was also quite a lot easier than I had expected. There are certainly a lot of ingredients, and it takes a long time to measure them all out, but once they are assembled it is really just a question of mixing them up and waiting patiently while they simmer on the stove. Saint Delia had given me to understand that the mixing process in particular was destined to be terribly arduous, but (unless I have done something wrong) it didn't seem that bad really. Anyway, the final result seems to both look and smell like a Christmas pudding. I just have to hope that it tastes like one too.

Since I live in Yorkshire these days, I feel duty-bound to point out that making your own Christmas pudding in the 21st century is very definitely a leisure activity, rather than an economy option. The ingredients alone cost something in the region of £20 - largely, of course, because I kept having to do things like buy a 200g pot of glacé cherries so that I would have 50g worth of them to put in the pudding. And that's before you allow for the fact that I also had to buy two pudding basins and a pudding steamer in order to cook it all. Still, does buying even Waitrose's finest luxury Christmas pudding have the same romance? Do you get to make a wish while you stir it, or wonder excitedly who will find the sixpences concealed in its murky depths, and whether their teeth with survive the experience? Oh no, I think not.

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Comments

[segh.livejournal.com]

You're too early! Christmas puddings should be made the last Sunday before Western Advent ("Stir-up Sunday") But congratulations anyway.
This is the first year my daughter won't be with us for Christmas - she's going to her mother-in-law's. But she asked if she might take a pudding with her and then asked me for a recipe. It's nice to think of it going down the generations.

[hollyione.livejournal.com]

Have to say my Mum did hers the same weekend as Pen's... Maybe there are different traditions across the UK?

[segh.livejournal.com]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stir-up_Sunday
Also, every member of the family must stir, three times east-to-west, in memory of the Three Kings!

[kantti.livejournal.com]

We do ours about ten years in advance, in practice. And in bulk, obviously!

The aging improves them, although I think we might have pushed it a bit far with the last pudding, made many years ago, moved three times, and destined for consumption this year. I am hoping this year's pudding will be pleasantly well-aged rather than an exercise in food poisoning or dessication.

[strange-complex.livejournal.com]

Ah, but one of these puddings will be eaten a fortnight before Christmas, during a weekend away with some friends, so I'd say I'm about right for that one at least.

[segh.livejournal.com]

My mother used to save one for Easter. Cooking, as she used to say, is not an exact science!
My family also has a wonderful recipe for brandy butter. Take some butter. Add icing sugar until you can't taste the butter. Then add brandy until you can't taste the sugar. The charm of this being, as I'm sure you realise, that you have to keep tasting it. My children say that they can take or leave Christmas pudding, but it's a wonderful excuse to eat brandy butter.

[strange-complex.livejournal.com]

Mmmmm.... brandy butter! Yes, I can very much see your children's point. I certainly wouldn't want to eat Christmas pudding without copious helpings of brandy butter, brandy sauce and brandy cream. :-)