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English Plum Pudding
Start making the fruit mixture 4 days ahead - there's no real shortcuts here...
Serves: 8
Added By: 
grahamC
Ingredients
1 pound seedless raisins
1 pound sultana raisins
1/2 pound currants
1 cup thinly sliced citron
1 cup chopped candied peel
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon mace
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1/4 teaspoon allspice
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 pound finely chopped suet
1 1/4 cups cognac
Pudding: 1 1/4 pounds (approximately) fresh bread crumbs
1 cup scalded milk
1 cup sherry or port
12 eggs, well beaten
1 cup sugar
1 teaspoon salt
Cognac
Method
- Blend the fruits, citron, peel, spices and suet and place in a bowl or jar. Add 1/4 cup cognac, cover tightly and refrigerate for 4 days, adding 1/4 cup cognac each day.
- Soak the bread crumbs in milk and sherry or port. Combine the well-beaten eggs and sugar. Blend with the fruit mixture. Add salt and mix thoroughly.
- Put the pudding in buttered bowls or tins, filling them about 2/3 full. Cover with foil and tie it firmly.
- Steam for 6-7 hours. Uncover and place in a 250F oven for 30 minutes.
- Add a dash of cognac to each pudding, cover with foil and keep in a cool place.
- To use, steam again for 2-3 hours and unmold. Sprinkle with sugar; add heated cognac. Ignite and bring to the table.
Reviews
Nigel1 said on 19 Oct 2007
Tried this out against my mum's own recipe, and while it didn't do too badly, it didn't work to well either, probably for the following reasons:
1. Pepper - that's a new one on me, and all the other cooks I asked, as well as some of the most elderly recipes from some of Englands oldest stately homes had never used or heard of using it.
2. Far too much fruit, and no hint of plums (pitted prunes are usaully inserted here) - a traditional christmas pudding, as passed on from the Victorians, actually is a plum pudding, all the fruit makes the pudding far to heavy to digest - 'it sat on the tongue like an angel dancing, and on the stomach like a concrete bowling ball'.
3. A steamed pudding is traditionally rich, not overpowering, everyone who tried it said it was too heavy, too rich, not sharp enough(?)in one case.
I have always believed that a plum pudding should be served either with brandy sauce or flamed with cognac, but this pudding seemed to develop a strange taste all of its own when both serving methods were tried, so I think I'll be sticking to my mum's receipe from now on, which she got from her granny, who got it from her granny, so I think it's about 160 years old now, and still going strong!
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