Deck the halls with boughs of holly, and bake up these beauties ready for the big day, or before if you can’t wait!
We baked ours in our BORA X BO steam oven, which gives a constant stream of steam and allows us to control just how much steam you use, but a conventional oven works too – you just need to half fill a roasting tin with water and pop the pudding moulds into it.
This recipe lets you create your own pudding, and even personalise a pudding per person, once the main part of the pudding is mixed. Just remember to label them before they go into the oven. We flavoured ours with orange, ginger and cranberry instead of the traditional brandy or sherry.
Let us know how you get on!
Christmas Pudding Recipe – Mix and Match by Room Forty
Zest of one orange
100g grated carrot
50g treacle
200g breadcrumbs
200g plain flour
250g veg suet
2 large eggs
200ml stout
250g muscovado sugar
400g mixed fruits of choice
- Make it your way….. ADD
200g mixed peel, apricots, dates, stem ginger, glace cherry (1tbsp per pud)
8tsp mixed spice / or a blend with cinnamon
8tbsp brandy / Rum / orange juice (1/2 tsp per pud)
1tbsp of almond, pecan or walnuts
- STEP 1
Mix together all the base ingredients in a large mixing bowl. Grease 15/18 individual Dariole pudding basins with a little butter, then line the bases with circles of baking parchment.
- STEP 2
Stir your choice of dried fruits, spices and liquid, plus nuts if you are using, into the base mixture. If you’re tailoring your puddings for each guest, then weigh out 225g/8oz base mixture per pud, before adding the extras (see brackets after ingredients for individual pud quantities).
- STEP 3
Heat oven to 160C/140C fan/gas 4 and boil the kettle. Fill each basin or dariole with pud mixture. Grease a large sheet of foil, then stick a large sheet of baking parchment on top. Cut it into 8 squares, large enough to cover the puds with overhang, and make a small pleat in each. Cover the puddings by scrunching foil round the edges to completely seal. stick a name label, written in biro, on top of each pud to help identify them when serving. sit the puds in a big roasting tin, pour hot water from the kettle into the tin until nearly halfway up the puds, then cook for 50 minutes. Cool, then remove from the dariole basins so that the fruit doesn’t react with the metal, wrap tightly in baking paper and store in an airtight container somewhere cool and dark to mature for Christmas day.
- STEP 4
To serve:-
Option 1 BORA Steam oven
Turn the oven to 140 and 80% steam. Put the puds back into the oven in their pudding basins. and cook for 30 minutes.
Option 2 (Conventional Oven)
Turn oven to 180C/160C fan/ gas 5 and put the puds back into the pudding basins and into a roasting tin half full with hot water to create steam. Cook for 30 mins.
Option 3 (Microwave)
Pop the pudding in the microwave and cover loosely. Add a mug of boiling water to the microwave to create steam. Heat on 60% power for 4 minutes and recheck to see if heated through.
All – Carefully turn out onto serving plates, running a knife round the edge to help release, then dust with a little icing sugar and top with holly, if you like.
Watch our how to VIDEO