Time to make the plum pudding! Remember, if you want to make one for Christmas, it needs to age a few weeks.

1/4 lb. flour
1/4 lb. currants
1 tsp. salt
1/4 lb. golden raisins
1 tsp. allspice
2 cooking apples, peeled, cored and chopped
1 tsp. ginger
1 ounce cut mixed citrus peel
1 tsp. cinnamon
2 oz. shredded almonds
pinch fresh grated nutmeg
Juice and grated rind of 1 orange and 1 lemon
1/4 lb. fresh breadcrumbs
1/4 lb. treacle (or molasses)
1/2 lb. shredded suet
4 large eggs
1/4 lb. brown sugar
2 tbsp. brandy
1/4 lb. dried chopped apricots
1/4 lb. prunes
1/4 lb dates

Sift flour, salt and spices into a large bowl. Stir in breadcrumbs, suet and sugar. Add fruits, peel and rind. Beat lemon and orange juice, molasses and eggs together and add to other ingredients. Steam for 6 hours — a coffee tin filled with the mixture and placed in a steamer in a covered pan does well. After steaming cover in a cool place and let age as long as possible - usually about 5 weeks.
To use, steam again for 2-3 hours and unmold. Sprinkle with sugar; add heated cognac. Ignite and bring to the table. Serve with hard sauce or cognac sauce.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 22nd, 2006 at 2:57 pm and is filed under Recipes. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, bookmark this on del.icio.us, or trackback from your own site.