Great-Grandmother Priestner's Christmas Pudding
Traditionally, after the initial steaming, the pudding is wrapped in calico and hung in a cool place to age for week/months before eating. I wrapped it in Glad wrap & put it in the fridge - for a week.
Source & History
This is my Great-Grandmother's Christmas pudding recipe. My mother had it and I'm not sure whether she ever made it. Until this year (2012), this was a historical artefact. However, I decided to see whether I could make it this year. Everyone who tried it seemed to think that it was really good - so did I!
Notes
- I ended up halving this recipe because the quantities were so huge. So I used 125 grams of sultanas...3 eggs.
- BUT DON"T HALVE THE COOKING TIME. I steamed the pudding in a 2.8l pudding basin for 6hr instead of the recommended 7hr.
- Find a butcher who sells suet because you really need to use the real thing to get the best result.
- I didn't grind the suet exactly, I whizzed it in the food processor then weighed the whizzed suet to get the quantity I needed.
- you'll need to get the apple cider from the bottle shop
- The Howe family tradition is that everyone in the household should stir the pudding before it is put into the pudding basin to cook - this is meant to ensure good luck for the family for the next year (that's what my mother told me).
- I know, the instructions for steaming are missing - I looked up methods on the internet (and so can you). I imagine in Great-Grandmother's day it was something that everyone knew how to do, so detailed instructions weren't needed.
- Author
- Aileen Sorohan
Ingredients
- 1 lemon juice & zest (rind)
- 1/2 cup apple cider
- 2 cups flour
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 1 tsp nutmeg ground
- 6 eggs
- 250 grams sultanas
- 250 grams raisins
- 1 kilogram currants
- 1/2 cup lemon/orange peel glace
- 250 grams suet ground
- 1/2 cup almonds slivered
- 1/2 cup bread crumbs dry
- 1 cup milk
- 1 cup brown sugar
Instructions
- Mix fruit, suet, nuts, bread crumbs, milk, sugar and juice & rind of lemon.
- Let stand overnight. (I put it in the fridge).
- Add eggs, cider, flour, nutmeg and salt. Mix well.
- Steam 7 hours. After cooking I wrap it in foil and store it in the fridge until Christmas. I heat it up in the microwave, after I remove the foil, and serve with custard and/or cream or caramel sauce or what my mother called "hard sauce".