CHRISTMAS PUDDING
Contributed by Eugene L. Jeffery
1/2 lb. flour
1/2 lb. bread crumbs
1 lb. suet
1 lb. brown sugar
3.4 lb. sultanas
1/2 lb. raisins
1 lb. candied peel
1 teacupful orange marmalade
1/4 lb. currants
1/4 lb. almonds, blanched & chopped
1/4 lb. glace cherries
grated rind of 1 lemons
juice of 1 lemon
1 teaspoon mixed spice
1 teaspoon salt
6 large eggs
1 glass stout
1/2 teaspoon bicarbonate soda
Mix will together all the ingredients, except the stout and bicarb of soda and leave covered overnight. Stir again next day very thoroughly.
Heat the stout and soda together in a small saucepan and add to the mixture while still frothy. The mixture must be stiff and not too moist.
Place in buttered basins and cover with buttered paper and foil. The mixture is sufficient to three-quarter fill three 2-pint pudding basins.
Put each pudding into a saucepan with sufficient water to come halfway up the basin and boil for 8 hours, topping up the water as necessary.
Contributed
by Liz Jenkin
Here
we go then - here's my recipe - not a Cornish one, just a general British one.
This needs to be made in November to be sufficiently "mature" for
Christmas Day.
Do
you have pudding basins in the US? This mixture makes 2 x 2 pint basins (or
4 x 1pint basin).
8 oz shredded suet
1 tsp mixed spice
half tsp nutmeg
quarter tsp cinnamon
4oz of self raising flour
1 lb soft brown sugar
8 oz white breadcrumbs grated from a stale loaf
8 oz sultanas
8 oz raisins
1 lb currants
4 oz glace cherries
2oz mixed peel (candied peel)
2 oz almonds, chopped
the grated rind of 1 orange and 1 lemon
1 apple peeled, cored and chopped
4 medium size eggs
10 fl oz stout (can you get stout? - Guinness? -milk stout? or similar - or
use barley wine)
4 tbsp rum
Put suet, flour, breadcrumbs, spices and sugar in bowl and mix thoroughly. Then
mix in all fruit, peel and nuts followed by apple then orange and lemon rinds.
In a different bowl beat eggs, mix in rum and stout/barley wine. Put this into
the dry ingredients - stir, stir, stir really well (it is traditional to make
a wish while stirring and for all the family to take part and do so).
Pudding should end up a good "dropping" consistency (add a little
more stout if necessary).
Leave overnight - next day grease basins and pack the mixture in tightly right
to the top. This is when you push in a silver coin (wrapped in aluminium foil)
if you want it so that someone can find it on Christmas Day - that person is
excused clearing up duty in this house (I never find it in my dish though :o(.
Cover each basin with a square of greaseproof paper and a square of cloth/muslin
(old pillowslip in this house!). Tie these round them with string then tie the
corners of the cloth together on top.
Steam puddings for 8 hours. When cooked and cooled remove paper and cloths and
replace with a fresh lot. Store in a cool, dry place. On Christmas Day steam
for 2 hours serve with rum sauce:- melt 1 and half oz of butter stir in 2 level
tbsp plain flour until smooth add milk stirring well until you have a nice creamy
sauce (about 3 quarters of pint milk in all). Stir in 1and half tbsp caster
sugar (fine sugar) and simmer gently for 10 minutes or so stirring to prevent
sticking. Then add 2 or 3 tbsps dark rum.
Now on Christmas Day when pudding is steamed and ready, warm a little dark rum,
set fire to it and carefully pour over the pud (while still burning).
Turn out lights and serve at the table still burning. Now, don't do this if
you are worried about it, it is ONLY to make it look pretty and serves no vital
purpose I think - and please don't sue me if you burn the house down - you do
this at your own risk!
MY
GREAT GREAT GRANDMA MARIA'S CORNISH CHRISTMAS PUDDING
Contributed
by Marcia Rothman
3
cups plain flour
1 cup bread crumbs
salt
3 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon bicarbonate soda
1 1/2 teaspoons spice
1/4 lb ground almonds
1/2 lb butchers suet
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 cup currants
1 cup sultannas
1 cup rasins
1 cup dates
1 lemon peel
juice of lemon
2 eggs milk
Wine glass of port wine
Put in egg and milk. Have the water boiling then puts the puddon in and boil
for 4 1/2 or 7 1/2 hours (hard to read) Keep the kettle boiling and it boil
down put some water in out of the boiling kettle. Tip it in by the side, not
on the top of the puddon.
AUNTY
BETTY'S CHRISTMAS CAKE
Contributed
by Liz Jenkin
half
pound of butter (unsalted would be good)
half pound of soft brown sugar
6 eggs
12 oz plain flour
4oz ground almonds
1 lb currants
1lb sultanas
1lb raisins
half pound glace cherries
2 oz mixed peel (candied orange and lemon peel)
2 oz glace pineapple (or more mixed peel if you can't get this)
1 tbsp black treacle
4 tbsps dark rum or brandy
Cream sugar and butter. Add eggs and flour and beat until creamy. Add remaining
ingredients. Press mixture into lined 8" square tin or 9" round tin
and place in cold oven. Turn oven to 275 degree F/ 140 degree C and bake for
4-5 hours until a skewer put into the middle comes out clean and not gooey.
Let cake cool in oven. Make a month before needed. Every week make holes in
bottom of cake with skewer and pour in rum or brandy (I prefer rum).
2 weeks before needed put marzipan/almond paste on top and sides or just top
and leave in cool dry place uncovered. 1 week before needed ice/frost the cake.
It is very difficult to give a recipe for icing/frosting used here because basically
you take an egg white and mix sieved icing sugar (this is a sugar that is so
fine and bright white that it looks like talcum powder - what do you call this?
frosting sugar?) until it is stiff ie when you stick a knife into the mixture
and pull it out quick it leaves behind a peak that doesn't lose shape. Anyway,
you put this icing on the top (and sides) and you can make it look like snow
by making peaks like you did to test the mixture or else you can put it on smooth
(like plastering a wall) leave it for a day or 2 to dry and then make some more
icing add food colour (red probably) and write Happy Christmas with an piping
set.
Traditional Christmas Cake
Contributed by Liz Jenkin
This
recipe is for 8" round tin.
12oz
currants
half pound sultanas
half pound raisins
2oz glace cherries
2 oz mixed peel
3 tbsps brandy or rum
8oz plain flour
quarter tsp nutmeg
half tsp mixed spice
4 oz ground almonds
8 oz soft brown sugar
1 tbsp black treacle
half pound unsalted butter
4 eggs
grated rind of an orange and a lemon
Same method as as Aunt Betty's Cake
CORNISH
CHRISTMAS CAKE
Contributed
by Gwynneth
Ingredients.
1
Cup Sugar, 4
Large Eggs, 1 Cup Butter, 3 Cups dried Fruit, 1 Cup of Nuts,1/2 Cup Plain Flour,
Juice of 1 Orange, Juice of 1 Lemon, 1tsp Baking Powder, 1 Large Bottle Whiskey,
Method:
Take 1 large bowl, and sample the whiskey for quality,
Turn on the electric mixer,
Pour 1 level cup of whiskey,and check at regular intervals to
be absolutely sure of the quality.
Beat 1 cup of butter in a large fluffy bowl,
Add 1 tsp sugar and beat again, check the whiskey,
Murm off the trixer and cry another tup,
Break 2 eggs add to the bowl if posbable
Chuck in the druit and mix on the turnerer,
Check the wallity of the quiskey,
and sift 2 cups of salt.........................who cares,
If the fried druit gets buck in the steaters pry loose with a drewscriver,
sample the whiskey for tonsistencity, sift the juice and strain the nuts,
add the sugar and check the whiskey,...............whatever,
Grease the oven and turn the cake into 350 greedees,
Reboil for 2 hours on the day the pudding is to be eaten. Serve with clotted cream.