Stir Up, we beseech thee, the pudding in the pot. And when we get home we’ll eat the lot!
Today is Stir-up Sunday, the day on which traditionally, Christmas puddings are made. I've only ever made one pudding from scratch and I wasn't very pleased with how it turned out, so this year, I've done my research and chosen Eliza Acton's Christmas Pudding recipe.
First published in 1845, her classic Modern Cookery book described this as 'A remarkably light, small, rich pudding.' According to my research, recipe tasters have voted it the best Christmas pudding every year, so it seems a safe choice and one which is unlikely to disappoint.
I followed the steps as described, stirring each of the ingredients in turn. It is a very straightforward recipe and fairly quick to produce the mixture.
The addition of eggs and brandy act to bind the dry ingredients together. Once fully combined, I made a wish and packed the mixture into two pudding basins.
The top of each basin was covered with greaseproof and then a layer of foil added. The string forms a handle to enable the pudding to be lifted out of the boiling water. The lengthy part of the process is three hours of steaming before the puddings are put away for Christmas to be reheated when needed.
As the saying goes, 'The proof of the pudding is in the eating.' I shall await the results with interest.
I made my pudding today too but used the BeRo book recipe. The Eliza Acton one sounds good - you must let us know how it turns out:)
ReplyDeleteAh ha! You managed to find Atora :) The recipe sounds lovely, too. There's nothing quite like a Christmas pudding is there? We use a recipe in the Radiation Cookery Book that my grandmother used to use in the 1930s (Radiation being a company that used to make stoves - the recipe book includes some very interesting foods and a LOT of raw beef mince and aspic!). I can't wait to hear what Eliza Acton's is like! :)
ReplyDeletexx