Christmas puddings - serve flaming

Christmas baking rule number 1 .. never bake only one of anything. Two Christmas cakes, two Christmas puddings also. At least two batches of favourite Christmas cookies or smákökur.

Christmas baking rule number 2 .. always sample ingredients prior to inclusion in recipe .. dried fruit, glacé cherries, brandy, sherry..

Óli’s general Christmas rule .. set fire to as many things as possible.

On holiday in Scotland in November I found individual Christmas puddings for sale way before advent even. Along with mulled wine and mince pies. Maybe like hot cross buns they will become year-round delights. But does that remove the delight? Thankfully we arrived just a little too early for the Christmas shopping carols, otherwise our hunt for Christmas presents in 2 days would have been even more trying that it was. Living in Iceland it is hard to go to the world outside without feeling like a child in a sweetie shop when presented with a big range of shops, culinary delicacies and prices which don’t break the bank. Mmm.. cheese, black pudding, .. shoes. I read once, when working over Christmas in a book shop, that the incessant playing of Christmas carols in the high street has a measurable detrimental effect to the mental health of shop workers. I can well believe it and I think I am still struggling to recover. Well, Christmas pudding joined the list of Scottish hits and true to style we decided to make our own. We spent the summer squashing berries and stirring pots of gooey blood so Christmas puddings really had to be homemade. Anyway, the suitcases were too stuffed with secret Christmas presents, glacé cherries, cheeses, haggi and black puddings for any shop-bought Christmas food.

Step 1, gather rather ugly but practical plastic pudding basins from Lakeland plastics. No chance I am messing with string and fancy knots a la Delia after the black pudding scenario. Step 2, gather all fruit left over from Christmas cakes and brandy stored away from Óli. Dig out trusty “Mrs. Beeton’s Favourite Recipes” book. Very small, it always hides behind the fancy, shiny, glossy photographic coffee-table type cookbooks which I hardly use. However, once tracked down it is a cookbook to be treasured, with age-old standards such as roast beef and yorkshire puddings, eccles cakes and .. Christmas puddings. Mrs. Beeton’s recipes work for me, Jamie Oliver’s don’t.

Mrs. Beeton was pretty amazing .. her book on household management became Britain’s most famous cookbook and despite the wealth of glossy modern books on cooking and food probably remains so. Originally published as a collection of articles from the "The Englishwoman’s Domestic Magazine", "The Book of Household Management Comprising information for the Mistress, Housekeeper, Cook, Kitchen-Maid, Butler, Footman, Coachman, Valet, Upper and Under House-Maids, Lady’s-Maid, Maid-of-all-Work, Laundry-Maid, Nurse and Nurse-Maid, Monthly Wet and Sick Nurses, etc. etc. – also Sanitary, Medical, & Legal Memoranda: with a History of the Origin, Properties, and Uses of all Things Connected with Home Life and Comfort." was published as a complete volume in 1961. Phew, was anyone left out of that list? I suppose the etc. etc. covers them. Just imagine the acronym. Also called Mrs Beeton’s Book of Household Management or Mrs. Beeton’s Cookbook. It is now mostly available on-line where you can also read about the history of a Victorian household. Times for people in Britain really were different then. She died aged 28 after giving birth, like many others of her era.

This recipe makes 4 puddings, each in a 1 pint sized basin. What on earth do you do with 4 puddings? I think this dates back from the days of 16-person families. One spoonful of this Christmas pudding is enough to satisfy a craving for rich food for at least a week. So, it was Christmas, we halved the recipe and made two, following rule number 1 and ate about one sixth as a serving each, enough to make it almost impossible to move for a few hours. The rather disgusting, yet traditional, Christmas feeling.

Ingredients: 225g (8oz) plain flour, pinch (meaning a little, I have little hands so that’s very small) of salt, pinch (again) of coriander, teaspoon ground ginger, teaspoon cinnamon, teaspoon mixed spice (I think it is a UK thing ..includes ), teaspoon grated nutmeg, 50g (2oz) chopped almonds, 450g (1lb) soft brown sugar (dark makes a nicer colour), 275g (10oz) shredded suet (beef fat, from Scotland, do not use chopped Icelandic lamb fat.. yucky yuck yuck), 275g (10oz) precious sultanas, 275g (10oz) currants or chopped figs or dates if currants have suddenly become more precious than gold.. maybe everybody was making Christmas puddings, 225g (8oz) raisins, 225g (8oz) mixed peel, 200g stale white breadcrumbs, 6 eggs, 75ml stout (e.g. Guinness.. give remaining to Óli, make a friend for the day), 50ml brandy (or to taste.. I wonder what becomes too much), tablespoon of rum, juice of 1 orange, 150-300ml (1/4 to 1/2 pint) milk. Not entirely authentic .. we added the figs (Figgy Pudding), cinnamon and coriander (because it didn’t smell Christmassy enough and most Icelandic baking has some cinnamon) and the rum (to dilute the brandy!). Like with the Christmas cake do the cooking show thing of measuring out everything into cute little bowls before mixing together otherwise something is bound to get missed. I felt a little silly with my long list, ticking everything off .. just needed a clipboard and to push my glasses to the end of my nose. Find someone else to do the washing up.

Method: Mix all dry things together (flour, salt, spices – you can sieve these if you wish, I don’t think it matters – dried fruits, almonds, sugar, suet and breadcrumbs). Beat together eggs, stout, rum, brandy, orange juice and 150ml milk. This really isn’t a pretty combination. Gradually stir this into the dry ingredients until you get a soft dropping consistency, which means what I ask? .. it drops softly, note dropping not dripping, soft and will drop off the spoon I suppose, but having investigated this now to some degree that can mean almost anything.. I’d aim for something like slightly melted ice cream. Put the mixture into four (if using the whole recipe and feeding your entire neighbourhood or one Edinburgh tenement) plastic pudding basins and cover with the lids. Leave about a 1 cm space between the pudding mixture and the lid. We overfilled one and of course it popped and then became too dry inside. Put into deep boiling water in a very big pan (big enough to boil yer head; really I don’t boil heads, its just a turn of phrase .. and reminds me of student fieldtrips and accurate measurements of boulder sizes.. “It was as big as my head”, perfectly describing the boulder in question and giving a lovely impression of the degree of roundness and density also, see attached head in appendix for calibration of the scale). Boil steadily for 6 to 7 hours. Puddings not heads. You need to be at home for this to top up the water now and again and to stop your children and pets climbing into the pot. It will be a slightly darker colour when cooked and you will see some tasty sweet syrupy juices in it. Let it cool, wrap tightly in foil and place in the fridge. Keep for as long as 12 months or preferably at least 1 month before eating. We had one at Hogmanay since there was no space after the turkey at Christmas and another for our Burns supper around a month later. The Burns night one was definitely better.

Reheat before serving either in the microwave for a few minutes or by boiling again for 1 and half hours. Leave to stand for five minutes or so before serving. Serve flaming! Heat an eggcup full of brandy for a few seconds in a microwave or in a small pan. Pour over up-turned pudding and set alight. Do not place under paper lampshade over the table. Whoosh! Good with cream or ice cream. How can anyone really seriously consider sweet brandy sauce?

Christmas cakes

My first Christmas away from a UK family so lets do it right. What do we need? A real Christmas cake, a Christmas pudding, Christmas dinner, crackers, tinsel, Christmas cards.. First the baking.

As predicted after baking fruitcake, Christmas cake was a drama. But fun. I bought decorations when in Edinburgh in November and hoarded dried fruit, putting the sherry, sultanas and glacé cherries out of reach of even Óli. I needed a set of steps to reach them. Mum gave me her recipe and we got hold of one from Delia online. We made two cakes.. Mum´s real Christmas cake with lots of halved cherries and Delia´s rich traditional cake which of course can´t beat Mum´s one. But being part of the real cultural experience I was told we had to have the traditional as well as the Mum version. I am writing this in March and .. well.. all the Mum cake disappeared before New Year but we have still got a small wedge of the Delia one wrapped in foil in the cupboard. Mum, can I give away the recipe?





For once it really is worth doing the cooking show thing of measuring everything into little bowls and placing them in the order of appearance in front of you. Tick each one off on the list. Prevents 4 times the amount of sultanas (so no more fruit cakes until next foreign trip and no Christmas pudding) and also prevents subtle theft of cherries to the detriment of the cake. More cherries in the cake the better, less cherries directly into Óli the better. Follow the secret recipe (is it secret Mum?) and place in a round tin, 8" diameter. Put brown paper or baking parchment around it and make a paper lid to stop it burning. Cook for about 3 hours. Feed with sherry once per week at least. Then, cover with marzipan rolled to a sensible thickness, less than 1cm perhaps. Make royal icing and forget to include gelatine and create a snowscene on your cake. Make everything nice and spiky. Break teeth on hard icing but enjoy cake.