Great Great Great Grandmas Christmas Pudding Recipes

GREAT GREAT GRANDMA'S PERSIMMON PUDDING

Steps:

• 2 quarts of milk poured over 1 quart of persimmons. (Remove seeds by running through a colander).
• Add 1 quart flour and 1+1/2 pints sugar, (mix together so flour won't lump), to the pulp and milk mixture.
• Mix together well: 1 teaspoon soda, 3 whole eggs (beaten), and chunk of butter (size of an egg).
• Mix and pour into a large crock or roaster and bake in a moderate oven '(350*F)', for 3 hours. Stir 'while baking' a couple of times.
• Serve with whipping cream.
• I had to add 'baking' to the ingredient soda as the Zaar program wouldn't accept just soda and '+' for 1+1/2 pints sugar as it looked like eleven halves in the directions.
• My mother added the 'mix together so flour won't lump' as the original recipe has the flour at the bottom of the recipe and doesn't tell how or when to add it. She also added the '350 degrees' and 'while baking' as the original recipe didn't have this information. She also had: chunk of butter the size of a walnut (or egg). As for the persimmons, I'm just guessing, she cut out the stem and skinned them before she put them through the colander to seed them?.
• I suppose you would want to preheat the oven too, as I believe this was originally made in a wood stove oven?.
• Not listed here is cinnamon and nutmeg as other recipes on Zaar have in them but I'm sure it would help this recipe. Maybe a poor farmer's wife didn't have these spices in 1850 Indiana?

GRANDMA'S CHRISTMAS PUDDING

Steps:

• Combine the raisins, almonds, citron, apples, and brandy in a bowl, and allow to sit overnight.
• The next day, preheat oven to 300°F.
• Butter a 2-qt. pudding mold (or souffle dish).
• Combine the fruit mixture with the remaining ingredients, one at a time. Mix well, and turn into pudding mold and cover tightly with parchment paper secured with cotton string.
• Place a large roasting pan in oven on center rack. Place mold in pan and fill roasting pan with boiling water, halfway up sides of mold. Steam 7 to 8 hours, adding more water if necessary.
• To serve, loosen the side of the pudding with a knife and invert onto a serving platter.
• Serve warm, with your favorite hard sauce. (There are several variations posted here on Zaar).

GRANNY MARTIN'S CHRISTMAS PUDDINGS

Steps:

• Soak the sultanas, currants, figs, mixed peel, cherries and the apricots in the brandy in a bowl overnight if possible or for at least a few hrs (if you don't have time for this, place the fruit in a microwaveable bowl with the brandy and give it a quick blast in the microwave to plump up). In a larger bowl, mix the ginger and syrup, apples, orange juice and zest, eggs, suet, crumbs, sugar and flour. Using your fingers or a wooden spoon, mix in the soaked fruit and mixed spice.
• Butter 2 x 1.5-litre pudding basins and divide the mixture between them, filling almost to the rim. Smooth the tops and cover with 2 circles of greaseproof paper. Cover each pudding with a sheet of foil with a folded pleat down the centre, to allow the pudding to expand, and secure everything by tying it tightly with some string. Stand the puddings in a deep, large pan (or 2 if that's easier) on trivets or upturned saucers and pour boiling water around so it comes about a third of the way up. Cover the pan and steam the puddings for 5 hrs, topping up with more boiling water when necessary.
• Let the puddings cool down before removing the foil and greaseproof paper, then cover with cling film over the top and store in a cool, dry place if you aren't using them straight away. This is the time you can drizzle them with more booze in the run-up to Christmas if you have time. To reheat, steam the pudding for 1 hr more before turning out and flaming with hot brandy.

GRANNY COOK'S CHRISTMAS PUD

Steps:

• Place everything but stout and eggs into your largest bowl and mix. Add stout and eggs, and stir everything together. Spoon into pudding basins - we used 1 x 2 litre, 1 x 1 litre and 1 x 500ml basins. Cover with pleated greaseproof paper and foil and secure with string.
• Lower the puds into saucepans with upturned saucers or scrunched-up bits of foil in the bottom (so the puds don't touch the bottom), then fill with water from the kettle until it comes halfway up the sides of the basins. Simmer the small pud for 1½ hrs, medium for 2½ hrs and large for 3½ hrs (topping up with water as necessary). Cool, then store in a cool, dry cupboard for up to 1 year.
• To serve, re-boil puds as above to heat through, 1½ hrs for small, 2½ hrs for medium and 3½ hrs for large (top up as necessary). Turn onto a plate, decorate, and serve.

GREAT GRANDMA'S RICE PUDDING

Steps:

• scald milk (not boiled)
• remove from heat and add the butter and sugar.
• cool. Slowly stir into the beaten eggs and add remaining ingredients.
• pour into a buttered casserole dish; set in pan of hot water
• Put pan with casserole dish inside of it inside the oven and bake at 350 for about 45 mins until the custard is firm.