Christmas Pudding

I’ve always been intrigued with plum pudding or also known as Christmas Pudding.  What is it, anyway?  I first heard about plum pudding as a child growing up when my family would watch Christmas movies during the holidays.  It was a Christmas tradition in our family to watch certain Christmas movies with It’s a Wonderful Life on the top of the list.  But another one we would watch was A Christmas Carol.  And I was always intrigued with the scene about their Christmas dessert; the Christmas Pudding.  It was such a big deal for the Cratchit family.  I get it that they were poor and probably even the smallest pleasures were a big deal but watching that scene year after year always made me curious about Christmas Pudding. 

 "But now, the plates being changed by Miss Belinda, Mrs Cratchit left the room alone — too nervous to bear witnesses — to take the pudding up, and bring it in.  Suppose it should not be done enough! Suppose it should break in turning out! Suppose somebody should have got over the wall of the back-yard, and stolen it, while they were merry with the goose: a supposition at which the two young Cratchits became livid! All sorts of horrors were supposed.

Hallo! A great deal of steam! The pudding was out of the copper. A smell like a washing-day! That was the cloth. A smell like an eating-house and a pastrycook’s next door to each other, with a laundress’s next door to that! That was the pudding. In half a minute Mrs Cratchit entered: flushed, but smiling proudly: with the pudding, like a speckled cannon-ball, so hard and firm, blazing in half of half-a-quartern of ignited brandy, and bedight with Christmas holly stuck into the top.

Oh, a wonderful pudding! Bob Cratchit said, and calmly too, that he regarded it as the greatest success achieved by Mrs Cratchit since their marriage. Mrs Cratchit said that now the weight was off her mind, she would confess she had had her doubts about the quantity of flour. Everybody had something to say about it, but nobody said or thought it was at all a small pudding for a large family. It would have been flat heresy to do so. Any Cratchit would have blushed to hint at such a thing.”

–Chapter 3, A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens

I had so many questions about that dessert.  Why did it look like a cake instead of pudding even though they called it plum pudding?  Was there really plums in it?  And if so, what kind of plums?  Was it hard to make or rare if it actually turned out right?  Was it one of those weird English things that only the British people like?  I bought plum pudding containers about fifteen years ago in an attempt to make it for Christmas dessert but that's about as far as I got.  I still haven't made it but we finally had it for dessert on Christmas in Spain and it was such a thrill and everyone loved it.  I bought it while we were in London at the Borough Market 

and like me, everyone in my family was intrigued about it.  I made a brandy sauce to pour over it like the vendor suggested and it was spectacular.  (We cut a portion out of the pudding for the kids before I poured the sauce over it which you can see in the first photo above.)  I bought a Mclaren's Christmas Pudding from a booth at the market for about $25 so it's not that expensive, either.

I bought the largest one since there were seven of us for Christmas. I'd say that it would serve maybe four adults if I had to guess at the portions. There were five of us adults and we basically cleaned the plate completely. They also sold smaller, individual ones that were very cute. When I bought my plum pudding containers, I bought the individual ones. It would be nice to serve individual ones, too, and pour the sauce over them as you serve it. McLaren's Christmas pudding tasted like the fruitcake that my mom always made growing up and that my sister still continues to make and sends to us each year. We all love the fruitcake my mom made. It's not like that horrible, awful, commercial fruitcake that you buy in stores here...you know, with those red and green maraschino cherries on top. I'm so happy that my sister has kept the tradition alive.

 

My mom's recipe involves wrapping the fruitcake in cheesecloth, doused in rum or brandy and letting it age. 

This McLaren's Christmas Pudding is also aged for 6 months.  So, it was easy to travel with and carry in our luggage from London to Spain where we spent Christmas. 

 

And what a perfect dessert.  Christmas Pudding from London!  We were all so surprised how good it was and I was a little shocked how much it tasted like my mom's fruitcake recipe.  We ate every crumb and every dribble of that brandy sauce.  I understand now why it is so popular in England.  Although, McLaren's Christmas Pudding has changed the recipe a bit from the medieval times in England when it began as an English tradition.  They don't use suet as the fat source anymore but use butter instead. (Good choice...)  And they use less flour and French Brandy and Guinness Stout.  Original Christmas Pudding is made with dried fruits, sugar, eggs, flour, spices, suet and brandy. In Victorian times, the more affluent you were, the more likely you were to make a richer pudding, filled with more fruit, eggs, spice and brandy. They called it "plum pudding" because "plum" was how they referred to raisins in Victorian England.  The pudding is either steamed or boiled. Before serving, brandy is poured over it and set on fire or it's served simply with a brandy sauce poured over it..  That's what I did because it makes such a spectacular presentation that way.   It is called pudding because it is made in "pudding basins" wrapped in parchment and foil, tied with twine and then steamed or boiled for several hours.  So, it is not as firm as cake and becomes very crumbly when you eat it.  It makes the sauce even more mouthwatering when soaked up in the pudding.  You can serve it in bowls instead of a plate because of the more "pudding" aspect of it.  I think now, it's probably going to be a lot easier to just purchase my plum pudding instead of trying to make it.  The sauce is very easy to make which adds the final touch to it.  Here is the sauce I used for our Christmas Pudding:  

2 egg yolks

1/2 cup + 1 Tbsp. heavy whipping cream

2 Tbsp. sugar

good quality brandy 2 tsp. to 2 Tbsp. as desired  (I used 2 Tbsp.)

1.  Whisk the egg yolks, cream and sugar in a pot over low heat.   Do not stop whisking and keep the heat low so that the custard doesn't curdle.  

2.  Continue whisking until the moisture thickens and becomes a sauce.  (If you want to serve this to young children, remove some to set aside and add a drop of vanilla.)

3.  Add the brandy to your liking, from two teaspoonfuls to two tablespoonfuls (or more), but be careful not to add too much brandy or the sauce will become too runny.  I used two tablespoonfuls.  I also used a local sherry that Nick had since we were in the sherry capitol of the world in Spain and the sauce was still fabulous. 

 

4.  Whisk well so that the sauce is completely smooth.  Pour into a serving jug to pour over the Christmas pudding before it's cut into pieces, which makes for a beautiful presentation.  However, it may be more practical to cut slices and place in bowls, then pour the sauce over the top.  I'd recommend this if you won't be finishing the entire pudding at one sitting, but we didn't have any trouble finishing it and you probably won't either.