English Christmas Pudding Recipe Recipe For Hand

HISTORICAL RECIPE: CHRISTMAS PUDDING

Steps:

• Cream butter and brown sugar until smooth. Add in raisins, carrot, potato and egg. Stir in flour and baking soda.
• Grease 2 small glass bowls or one large bowl. Fill with pudding. Leave about an inch between the top of the pudding and the top of the bowl to give it room to rise.
• Cover the bowl with a piece of parchment, followed by a piece of tin foil, secured with string. My grandmother used a clean piece of muslin instead of the parchment.
• The pudding can be steamed in a double boiler, or you can place the pudding in a large pot, placing the pudding bowl on a small ramekin or mason jar ring to keep it off the bottom of the pot. Pour water in the bottom to no more than 1/3 of the way up the sides of the bowl.
• Steam the pudding for 2 - 3 hours, or until a toothpick comes out clean. My small puddings are usually done at 2 hours, with a large pudding taking the full three. Add additional hot water to your pot as necessary to keep your pot from boiling dry.
• Turn the pudding out onto a plate and serve hot with brown sugar sauce.
• Brown Sugar Sauce Instructions
• Melt butter in a saucepan. Whisk in brown sugar and continue to stir constantly until boiling. Boil for two minutes. Remove from the heat and whisk in milk and vanilla. Return to the heat and stir constantly until the mixture once again comes to the boil. Thin with more milk or cream if necessary. Serve warm.

ENGLISH CHRISTMAS PUDDING WITH CUSTARD

Steps:

• Blanch the golden raisins and currants in hot water, pour into a colander and drain. Chop the prunes finely, mix with the rum, and blanched golden raisins and currants. Peel the apple into quarters, remove the core and finely grate. Add the grated apple together with the finely chopped candied lemon and orange peel to the rum-fruit mixture. Add the softened butter, breadcrumbs, flour, hazelnuts, brown sugar, eggs, cloves and cinnamon to the fruit mixture and knead into a dough.
• Fill the dough into a buttered pudding mold and seal with a lid or aluminum foil. Place the mold in a baking tray and pour hot water into the tray. Bake in a preheated oven at 150°C (fan: 130°C, gas mark 1) (approximately 300°F) for about 3 hours (for the uniform cooking). Keep the pudding in the closed mold until ready to serve.
• For the custard, halve vanilla pod lengthwise and scrape out seeds with a sharp knife. Mix the milk with cream and vanilla seeds in a pot, and bring to a boil. Whisk the egg yolks with the sugar in a bowl until creamy, stir the hot cream milk into the egg yolk mixture, pour back the mixture into the pot, and beat on low heat, stirring constantly to form the sauce (do not boil!). Pass the custard through a sieve, let cool, and sprinkle the surface thinly with sugar so that no skin forms.
• Release the pudding from the mold, cut into pieces and serve with custard.