Christmas Pudding

Can you believe it's the 1st of December!!!??? well luckily for all of you I am a food obsessed crazy lady who has been soaking fruit for Christmas puddings for months. so please take advantage and use this recipe this Christmas to make your own Christmas pudding because there is just nothing quite like a home made Christmas pudding.

Oh but here's one little tip from the drunken chef, there really is no need to cover the fruit in alcohol when soaking it, you just need to add a cup or two of brandy and or cherry and agitate your jar or container every day or so. I originally used a 700ml bottle to soak 1kg of fruit and although I thoroughly drained the fruit before using it, it was so strong with alcohol I fear you could have been arrested for drink driving after eating it. whoops.



Ingredients:

3 cups fresh bread crumbs

2 cups milk

2 cups flour

3 heaped teaspoons baking powder

2 cups brown sugar

250g butter

4 eggs

1kg soaked fruit

2 cups slivered almonds

1 teaspoon nutmeg

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1 teaspoon ginger

Method:

soak fresh breadcrumbs in the milk.

cream butter and sugar then add the eggs one at a time. you really need the eggs to be at room temperature for this so you don't end up with a curdled mess.

pour the soaked bread crumbs into the butter, sugar and egg mix and stir it all together. scoop your fruit out of the alcohol and add it to the mixture, add the rest of the dry ingredients and mix it all together until you have a nice silky batter.

pour your pudding mix into two greased pudding tins. put the pudding tins into a large saucepan each and fill the saucepan with water until it reaches 3/4 of the way up the side of the pudding tin. bring the water to the boil and then cook on a medium heat for 3 1/2 hours.