This Ultimate Christmas Pudding recipe was devised by Dr. Oetker and Juliet Sear and it is a must have for Christmas.
This recipe will make one large family sized pudding – we used a large enamel 18” cm pudding basin.
Ultimate Christmas Pudding
Ingredients:
- 120g plain flour
- 60g fresh wholemeal breadcrumbs
- 120g shredded vegetable suet
- 120g brown sugar
- 120g grated Bramley apple
- 120g glace cherries, halved
- 120g currants
- 350g raisins
- 120g sultanas
- 120g chopped dried apricots
- 2 tablespoons chopped stem ginger in syrup
- 2 tsp Dr. Oetker Valencian Orange Extract
- 2 sachets Dr. Oetker Ready Zest [lemon]
- 2 tbsp black treacle
- 1 tsp mixed spice
- 1 tsp ground cinnamon
- ½ tsp ground nutmeg
- 2 large eggs
- 175ml Brandy
Method:
- Mix all ingredients together in one large bowl
- Stir well to combine all of the ingredients
- Leave to mature overnight in the fridge
- The next day, fill your pudding basin with the mix, pressing down to level out the top
- Cover with a piece of baking parchment and foil and tie securely and tightly over the top of the basin with string.
- Place in a large pan and fill with boiling water, the water should come up to around ¾ of the way up the pudding basin
- Simmer for 8 hours, keeping an eye on the water and topping up the level at regular intervals
- Once cooked, cool and add fresh parchment and foil over the basin, tie and store until eating on Christmas day
- When ready to eat, heat by simmering for a minimum of 2 hours.
- To serve, pour a generous glug of warmed brandy all over the pudding and set alight. To make the pudding decorate, you can add some additional glace cherries to dot around the base, sprayed with Dr. Oetker gold shimmer spray, they will look like golden berries and add a festive sparkle.
Top tips when baking the Ultimate Christmas Pudding:
Traditionally in the UK the Christmas pudding is made on the Sunday before advent, ‘Stir Up Sunday’, which is six weeks before Christmas Day. So get the family together and follow Dr. Oetker’s top tips for creating the Ultimate Christmas Pudding.
Content continues after advertisements
- Each family member should take turns stirring the mix, making a Christmas wish as they do!
- Don’t forget to put a silver coin in your pudding before you leave it to mature – its good luck for whoever finds it on Christmas day! [but be very careful to check for it when you serve]
- Don’t skip the soaking selection – to achieve a fuller flavour soaking your mix overnight makes all the difference
- Replace the usual Caster, with darker sugars like Muscovado to give your Christmas pudding a richer, more caramel flavour
- Make sure the eggs you use are at room temperature rather than fresh out of the fridge to avoid curdling
- After it is steamed store for four weeks, the longer the better
- If you want to be really traditional, then store your maturing Christmas pudding under the bed – the perfect cool, dry place
- Gently warm the brandy to serve so you don’t burn all of the alcohol away…
