Scallion Rap

This year, I’m making Delia Smith’s Christmas Cake recipe again.  I’ve altered it slightly to quarter the glacé cherries, rather than chop them up small, but that’s all.

The pudding is more of a challenge.  Last year I did the Grigson Guinness recipe.  My husband loved it and ended up eating the lot, because I loathed it.  Up to that point I’d never met a Christmas Pudding I didn’t like, but I thought the Guinness recipe was too greasy, and had an unpleasant texture.

So this year, I looked for a recipe that was more like my mother’s.  She always made a good dark pudding.  Mum used to say that she used her mother’s recipe, but when I asked her for it, she’d just say that she used “the same amount of everything, but half as much of some things”, which wasn’t very useful. However, she did also say once, that the recipe in Dorothy Hartley’s Food in England was the nearest she’d seen to her mother’s.

Looking at Hartley’s recipe today, it seemed to me that it wasn’t very like the one I remember mum making, but I decided to make it the basis for my own recipe.  So here is:

The Same Amount of Everything but Half of Some Things Christmas Pudding

Mix together:

4 oz shredded suet

4 oz soft brown sugar.  In N.Am this is often called demerara sugar, but don’t use the bright crystals that are called demerara in the UK. Darker muscovado sugar would be better, but I couldn’t obtain any.

4 oz raisins (black raisins)

4 oz sultanas (yellow raisins)

4oz breadcrumbs

2 oz flour – sifted

2 oz mixed peel (I prefer orange and lemon candied peel mixed, to the “mixed peel” that contains dyed rutabaga)

2 oz walnuts chopped

2 oz almonds chopped

Half teaspoon mixed spice

Eighth teaspoon ground nutmeg

2 medium eggs, lightly whipped.

2 tbsp brandy

2 fl oz milk, plus more if necessary to make a  dropping consistency.

Mix very well.  Leave overnight covered in cloth. Put into one and a half pint pudding basin.  Cover with greaseproof paper and cloth in the usual way.

Steam for 8 hours.

I suspect my mum’s recipe varied a little every year, for the simple reason that she never wrote it down.  She says that the trick is to steam it for a long time, which will make almost any pudding black and rich tasting.

I’ll let you know how my recipe comes out.

Post amended Nov 21st to clarify the definition of demerara.

After Christmas.  The pudding came out well, but was perhaps a little too nutty.  Next year I’ll substitute currants for the walnuts.