Christmas Pudding

Ingredients

Equipment Needed

• •1.2-litre pudding basin (ceramic or heatproof glass)
• •Large, deep saucepan with a tight-fitting lid (for steaming)
• •Baking parchment and foil
• •Kitchen string
• •Sturdy wooden spoon
• •Small trivet or upturned saucer
• •Fine grater or microplane (for zest and nutmeg)
• •Skewer (for feeding the pudding)

Instructions

1. 1

   Soak the fruit the night before

   The night before you plan to make the pudding, tip all the dried fruit, the candied peel, and the cherries if you're using them into your largest mixing bowl. Pour over the stout and the brandy, give it a good stir, and cover with a clean cloth. Leave it on the kitchen counter overnight. By morning the fruit will have drunk most of it up, gone plump and glossy and fat, and the kitchen will smell faintly of Christmas already. This is the most important step and the easiest.

   Don't be tempted to skip the soak or hurry it. Unsoaked fruit steals moisture from the pudding as it cooks and the texture suffers. Overnight is the minimum. Twenty-four hours is better.
2. 2

   Mix the dry ingredients

   On Stir-up Sunday, or whenever you've decided is yours, add the muscovado sugar, suet, breadcrumbs, flour, chopped almonds, mixed spice, cinnamon, nutmeg, and salt to a very large bowl. Rub it all together with your hands to break up the sugar and distribute the spices. It should feel dry and sandy and smell of Christmas cake in the making.

3. 3

   Bring it all together

   Tip the soaked fruit and any liquid left in the bowl into the dry mixture. Grate in the apple, skin and all, avoiding the core. Add the orange and lemon zest, the orange juice, and the beaten eggs. Now stir. Properly. From east to west if you're feeling traditional, and make a wish if you must. The mixture will be heavy and sticky and dark, and you'll need a sturdy wooden spoon and some weight behind it. Everyone in the house should take a turn. It should be loose enough to drop reluctantly from the spoon when you lift it. If it feels too stiff, add another splash of stout.

   This is a good moment to taste a little of the raw mixture for seasoning. Yes, raw egg, I know. But a Victorian pudding cook would have done the same and you want to know if it needs more spice before it's too late.
4. 4

   Pack the basin

   Butter a 1.2-litre pudding basin generously. Spoon the mixture in, pressing down firmly as you go to get rid of any air pockets. Mound the top slightly. Cut a round of baking parchment and a round of foil, each one big enough to overhang the basin by a few inches. Lay them together and pleat them down the middle: this gives the pudding room to rise. Place them pleated-side up over the basin and tie them down tightly with kitchen string just under the rim. Loop a second length of string across the top as a handle. You'll need it to lift the thing in and out of the pan.

5. 5

   The long steam

   Sit a small upturned saucer or a trivet in the base of a large, deep saucepan. Lower the pudding basin onto it. Pour in boiling water from the kettle to come halfway up the sides of the basin. Bring everything to a gentle simmer, cover with a lid, and leave it to steam for six to eight hours. Check every hour or so and top up with boiling water as needed. The kitchen will slowly fill with the smell of cloves and orange peel and something darker and richer underneath, and by the end of the day the whole house will smell of Christmas. The one thing that can ruin you here is letting the pan boil dry. Don't.

   A proper slow, quiet simmer is what you want. A furious boil rattles the basin around and steams the pudding unevenly. You should hear a gentle bubbling, nothing more.
6. 6

   Cool, wrap, and feed

   Lift the pudding out and let it cool completely on the counter. Remove the steaming parchment and foil, replace them with fresh layers, and store somewhere cool and dark for at least three weeks. Every week or so, unwrap the top, prick the pudding in a few places with a skewer, and spoon a tablespoon of brandy over it. Rewrap and put it back. This is feeding the pudding. It's a silly phrase and I love it. The longer it sits, the better it gets.

7. 7

   The second steam on the day

   On Christmas Day, steam the pudding again in exactly the same way for two to three hours. It's already cooked: this is just warming it through and giving the fruit one last surge. Keep the water topped up as before. While it steams, make the brandy butter if you haven't already, and find a plate worth bringing to the table.

8. 8

   Turn out and set alight

   Lift the pudding from the pan and let it rest for a few minutes. Run a palette knife around the inside of the basin, invert it onto a warm serving plate, and give it a firm shake. It should slide out without argument into a dark, glossy dome. Tuck a sprig of holly into the top. Warm three or four tablespoons of brandy gently in a small pan or a ladle over a flame, just until it's warm to the touch and the vapour catches. Pour it over the pudding and set it alight at the table. The flame will be pale blue and brief. For about thirty seconds, everyone stops talking. Then it's just pudding. Serve it in thick slices with brandy butter or cold double cream, and don't let anyone tell you they only want a small piece.

Chef Tips

• •Vegetarian suet works as well as beef suet here. The pudding carries so much fruit and spice and brandy that nobody at the table will know the difference, and it means everyone can eat it without fuss. Don't agonize over it.
• •A Christmas pudding gets better the longer it sits. Three weeks is the minimum, but two months is better, and I've eaten puddings six months old that were quietly splendid. Stir-up Sunday, the last Sunday before Advent, is really the latest reasonable date if you're making it for this Christmas. Any earlier is welcome. Any later and you're rushing it.
• •Warm the brandy before you pour it over for the flaming. Cold brandy poured onto a cool pudding will not light, and nothing deflates a Christmas table faster than a match that won't catch. A ladle held briefly over a gas flame is enough, or a small pan on a low heat. Pour it on and strike the match the moment you lift the ladle. Quick work.
• •Brandy butter is the traditional partner and it's worth making your own: soft unsalted butter beaten with icing sugar and a generous slosh of brandy, that's all. But honestly, cold double cream poured from a jug is just as good. It's the contrast of cold and warm, rich and dark, that matters.

Advance Preparation

• •The pudding is designed to be made weeks ahead. Stir-up Sunday (the last Sunday before Advent) is traditional, giving roughly four to five weeks of maturing time before Christmas.
• •Soak the dried fruit in the stout and brandy the night before mixing. Overnight is the minimum; a full day is better.
• •After the first long steam, store the pudding wrapped in fresh parchment and foil in a cool, dark cupboard. Feed it with a tablespoon of brandy every week or two, poking holes in the top with a skewer first.
• •A well-fed pudding keeps for at least a year. If you're organised enough to make one in January for the following Christmas, it will be remarkable.
• •On Christmas Day itself, the pudding needs a second steam of two to three hours to warm it through. Factor this into your cooking plan.

Frequently Asked Questions

Nutrition Information

1 serving (about 190g)