Join Mrs Crocombe as she makes a traditional plum pudding at Audley End House. This recipe comes from 'Modern Cookery' by Eliza Acton, who is understood to have been the first person to call it 'Christmas Pudding'.
INGREDIENTS 75g flour 75g breadcrumbs 150g suet 150g raisins 150g currants 100g chopped apple (roughly one large apple) 125g white sugar 50g candied peel ½ tsp mixed spice A pinch of salt 100ml brandy plus 50ml for serving 3 small eggs
METHOD Begin by adding all of the dry ingredients into a bowl and mixing them together by hand.
Pour in 3 small eggs and 100ml of brandy before stirring again.
Line your chosen mould with butter and fill it with the mixture using a wooden spoon, making sure that every bit of space is filled, especially the bottom of the mould.
Cover the top with a wet, floured cloth and insert a fold in the material to allow space for the mixture to rise.
To steam the pudding, place the filled mould in a saucepan of boiling water, ensuring that the water level is approximately half way up the mould.
Steam for around 4 hours. To serve, carefully turn out of the mould.
When serving, gently heat some brandy then pour this over the pudding before lighting for those festive flourishes.
It's Christmas!
I'd like to make you pudding plum.
This is one of the general services of Cymdeithas Cymru or Eliza Acton.
I'm getting a lot of service in my general office because I'm doing the right thing.
I understand you're the first person I've ever held pudding plwm, pudding Christmas.
I'm here to help, stay in the room.
Flour and meal
Other, of a fat content, by weight, not exceeding 2%
Other
Other vegetables
Sugar
Mixed Spice
and eggs
To my bowl of flour, I shall add all the dry ingredients.
The sugar
A little spice.
and some candied peel.
Plum pudding is eaten in country houses like this throughout the autumn and winter months.
But since it's Christmas Day, this plum pudding will be Christmas pudding.
And Mr Lincoln the butler will pour over hot brandy and light it when it's served.
Oh, I better add the wet ingredients.
The eggs.
and the brandy.
To choose the mold.
I've lined my mold with butter and I'm now going to put in the mixture.
Making sure it gets right down to the bottom.
Now using a wet cloth that has been well floured, I'm going to lay it on top, leaving a fold so it has room to rise.
And now I'm going to steam it, putting the water about halfway up the mold.
You can, of course, boil your plum pudding in a cloth for that traditional cannonball shape.
Or steam it in a plain mold, but that's not very imaginative.
You can then steam it for about four hours, but it is quite forgiving.
So if it's a little longer, don't worry.
Just don't let it boil dry.
Now the pudding is ready, it's time to turn it out.
Since it's Christmas Day, I'm going to decorate it with some holly.
There we are, Christmas pudding.
