Jane’s Christmas Pudding

Ingredients

• 1kg dried fruit (use more currants than others to make dark but you can make up the total as you wish) in roughly the following quantities:
• 300g currants
• 200g raisins
• 200g sultanas
• 100g prunes, stoned and chopped
• 100g natural coloured glacé cherries
• 100g blueberries
• Enough rum (about 300ml) to soak all the fruit overnight
• 400g dark (70% cocoa solids) chocolate
• 100g ground almonds
• 225g shredded suet
• 500g soft dark brown sugar
• 225g plain flour
• 1 teaspoon mixed spice
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• ½ teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
• 385g fresh white breadcrumbs
• Pinch of salt
• Juice and zest of 1 orange
• 5 large free-range eggs, beaten
• 4 tablespoons black treacle
• 4 tablespoons golden syrup
• 300ml Guinness
• 150g carrots, grated
• 2 apples, peeled, cored and roughly chopped
• Butter, to grease the basins

Method

1. Soak all the dried fruit in the rum overnight.
2. Melt the chocolate in a microwave or heatproof bowl over a pan of barely simmering water, making sure the bowl doesn’t touch the water. Leave to cool.
3. Grease your bowls and, unless you have a double saucepan, prepare your biggest lidded pans for steaming the puddings. They should sit on a trivet or on an upturned saucer; you need to keep the boiling water at a level of about 5cm up the side of the bowls.
4. In a huge bowl (to avoid the risk of losing the lot on the kitchen floor), add all the ingredients, stirring thoroughly to ensure everything is combined with no patches of dry ingredients.
5. Share the mixture between the greased pudding bowls but do not fill them right to the top – allow a little room for the puds to rise.
6. Cut a circular piece of baking parchment the circumference of the bowl and put on top of the mixture. Cut a far bigger piece of foil to cover the bowl and create a pleat in the top to allow the steam to circulate. Place the foil over the top and push down around the outside of the bowl. Tie string around the rim to hold the foil in place. If you make a little string handle across the top it makes the task of lifting the basin in and out of the boiling water easier.
7. Steam large puddings over boiling water for 4–6 hours – you really cannot oversteam at this point, the longer you steam the richer they get, but do ensure you top up the water level from time to time. Smaller bowls may only need 2–3 hours.
8. Lift out the bowls from the pan and allow to cool. Once cooled, you can remove the foil and baking parchment and clean up the bowls which will be quite greasy after steaming. Replace with a fresh piece of baking parchment and tie new foil over the top. Keep in the fridge or a cool place until needed – once cooked the puddings last for months. When you are ready to eat your pudding, steam again for 1–2 hours.
9. You have to do the lighting thing… light with brandy for the traditional presentation and ooh and aah moment.
10. Serve with your preferred sauce, brandy butter, cream – it’s too personal to make a call on this!