Mini Christmas Pudding

This is a great last-minute Christmas Pudding recipe as it does not need time to mature and is best eaten within two weeks. Mini Christmas Puddings look a lot more sophisticated when they are served and these are just the right size for one person. If you don’t serve them all at your meal you can save the extra ones for another day. They reheat easily in the microwave or a steamer.

I found this recipe on the Good Food website, which offered opportunities to tailor Christmas puddings according to your guests’ tastes. This is my adapted version which includes all the things I think a good Christmas pudding needs. I made the full recipe amount and ended up with six mini Christmas puddings and one large one so the quantities in the recipe below are half the original amounts and will make six mini Christmas Puddings or one large one.

Recipe

Ingredients

100g breadcrumbs

100g plain flour

125g vegetarian suet

1 teaspoon mixed spice

125g dark brown sugar

200g dried mixed fruit

25g glacé cherries, chopped

25g dried apricots, chopped

50g grated carrot

Zest of one orange

1 egg, beaten

25g treacle

100ml stout, eg Guinness

1 tablespoon brandy or sherry

1 tablespoon orange juice

Method

Set the oven to 160ºC and grease your pudding mould or moulds and put them in a roasting tin.

Mix all the dry ingredients together in a large bowl.

Add the remaining ingredients and mix well. It will not be an attractive or tasty mixture at this stage:

Christmas pudding mix

Divide the mixture evenly between the moulds.

Cover the tops by oiling a large piece of aluminium foil and covering it with the same sized piece of baking parchment. Oil the baking parchment. Cut out squares of foil and paper that are larger than the puddings and scrunch over the edges:

Covering the puddings with foil and baking parchment

You should make a pleat across the middle of the foil and paper before covering the pudding, which I forgot to do. Luckily it didn’t seem to matter.

Then pour boiling or hot water into your roasting tin, about half way up the pudding moulds.

The puddings will take about an hour in the oven: they will be firm on top.

Remove from the oven and allow to cool completely in the tins:

Cooked pudding

The puddings can be stored in the moulds or removed and kept in cling film in the fridge. When you are ready to serve, either microwave for around a minute on full power, or put back in the tins, cover and steam again in the oven until heated through.

Dust with icing sugar and serve with custard, brandy butter or cream.

Christmas pudding!

Categories: Baking, Desserts, Recipes

Tags: baking, brandy, breadcrumbs, carrots, Christmas, dried apricots, dried fruit, glace cherries, Guinness, mixed dried fruit, raisins, recipe, seasonal cooking, stout, suet, vegetarian suet