Christmas Pudding – The traditional British, Christmas dessert. Sweet, scrumptious and seasonal the only bad thing is that we have to wait for that certain time of year to spoil ourselves with it.

The best Christmas Puddings are made with dried fruits held together by egg and suet, moistened with treacle or molasses and typically seasoned with cinnamon, nutmeg , cloves, ginger and other spices with it’s high alcohol content preventing it from spoiling during time.

The history behind the popular christmas dessert goes back to medieval England with the quote “pudding should be made on the 25th Sunday after Trinity, that it be prepared with 13 ingredients to represent Christ and the 12 apostles, and that every family member stir it in turn from east to west to honour the Magiand their supposed journey in that direction”. Whilst most of us are less concerned with it’s religious significance it’s still mostly reserved for that festive time of year, but maybe that’s because of it’s lengthy cooking time and it’s rich taste.

Usually families will buy there puddings to considerably reduce the cooking time. Traditional methods require many hours of steaming however readymade puddings can be heated in the oven over a much shorter period of time.

However, there are those traditionalist who still like to do it themselves. Many people have there own recipes for Christmas Pudding but if this is your first time, we’ve included some ingredients below to get you started:

Preparation time : 20 minutes
Cooking time : 8 hours
Makes two 1.2 litre/2 pint puddings (each serves 8)

Ingredients :

– 50 g blanched almond
– 2 large Bramley cooking apple
– 200g box candied peel (in large pieces) or all citron if you can find it
– 1 whole nutmeg (you’ll use three quarters of it)
– 1kg raisin
– 140g plain flour
– 100g soft fresh white breadcrumb
– 100g light muscovago sugar, crumbled if it looks lumpy
– 3 large eggs
– 2 table spoons brandy or cognac, plus extra to flame
– 250g packet butter taken straight from the fridge