Frances bissell's low-fat christmas pudding
8 Servings
Ingredients
| Quantity | Ingredient | |
|---|---|---|
| 230 | grams | (8 oz, 4 loosely packed |
| Cups) fresh wholemal | ||
| Breadcrumbs | ||
| 230 | grams | (8 oz, 2 cups) EACH of |
| Roughly chopped muscatel | ||
| (black) raisins, | ||
| Sultanas (yellow raisins) | ||
| And dried apricots | ||
| 60 | grams | (2 oz, 3/4 cup) crumbled |
| Almond macaroons or | ||
| Amaretti | ||
| 60 | grams | (2 oz, 3/4 cup) chopped |
| Almonds | ||
| 60 | grams | (2 oz, 1/2 cup) ground or |
| Flaked almonds | ||
| 1 | Grated appple | |
| 1 | tablespoon | Grated orange zest |
| 1 | teaspoon | Ground cinnamon |
| 1 | teaspoon | Ground mace |
| ½ | teaspoon | Ground cardamom (I had none, |
| So used cumin, which worked | ||
| As well!) | ||
| ½ | teaspoon | Ground cloves (I used whole, |
| And put them in the food | ||
| Processor | ||
| With the bread! Again, it | ||
| Worked) | ||
| ½ | teaspoon | Ground allspice |
| 2 | tablespoons | Orange marmalade or candied |
| Orange peel | ||
| Juice of 1 orange | ||
| 4 | mediums | Free-range eggs |
| 6 | tablespoons | Or 1 miniature bottle of |
| Cognac | ||
| 140 | millilitres | (5 fl oz, scant 2/3 cup) |
| Fortified muscat wine, port, | ||
| Marsala | ||
| Or rich oloroso sherry | ||
Directions
Put all the dry ingredients in a large bowl and mix thoroughly. Put the marmalade, orange juice, eggs, brandy and wine in another large bowl, or in the blender or food processor, and beat until well blended and frothy. Pour the liquid over the dry ingredients. Mix until moist. Cover, and let sand for a couple of hours at least and, if possible, overnight to let the spice flavours develop.
Oil or butter the pudding basin and spoon in the mixture. As it contains no raw flour, it will not expand very much during the cooking, so you can fill the basin to within 1¼ cm (½ inch) of the rim. Take a square of greaseproof or waxed paper, oil or butter it (I didn't bother, but did oil the basins. I don't have a 3-pint one, so used 1 2-pint and 1 1-pint one, 2 pints being ample for my family for Christmas dinner) and tie it over the top of the basin with string.
Steam in boiling water for 5 hours. Allow pudding to cool completely before wrapping it, still in its basin, in fresh greaseproof paper plus a layer of foil. Store in a cool dark place.
On Christmas Day, steam for a further two hours.
Bissell/Levy suggest serving this with creme fraiche, rather than the traditional brandy butter (don't ask - not to be discussed on THIS mailing list!!!), and I do think this is one occasion when a LITTLE cream is permissible!