Frances Bissell's Low-Fat Christmas Pudding
Ingredients
230 g (8 oz, 4 loosely packed
1 cups) fresh wholemal
1 breadcrumbs
230 g (8 oz, 2 cups) each of
1 roughly chopped muscatel
1 (black) raisins,
1 sultanas (yellow raisins)
1 and dried apricots
60 g (2 oz, 3/4 cup) crumbled
1 almond macaroons or
1 amaretti
60 g (2 oz, 3/4 cup) chopped
1 almonds
60 g (2 oz, 1/2 cup) ground or
1 flaked almonds
1 grated appple
1 tbsp grated orange zest
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp ground mace
1/2 tsp ground cardamom (i had none,
1 so used cumin, which worked
1 as well!)
1/2 tsp ground cloves (i used whole,
1 and put them in the food
1 processor
1 with the bread! again, it
1 worked)
1/2 tsp ground allspice
2 tbsp orange marmalade or candied
1 orange peel
1 juice of 1 orange
4 medium free-range eggs
6 tbsp or 1 miniature bottle of
1 cognac
140 ml (5 fl oz, scant 2/3 cup)
1 fortified muscat wine, port,
1 marsala
1 or rich oloroso sherry
Preparation
Put all the dry ingredients in a large bowl and mix thoroughly. Put
the marmalade, orange juice, eggs, brandy and wine in another large
bowl, or in the blender or food processor, and beat until well
blended and frothy. Pour the liquid over the dry ingredients. Mix
until moist. Cover, and let sand for a couple of hours at least and,
if possible, overnight to let the spice flavours develop.
Oil or butter the pudding basin and spoon in the mixture. As it
contains no raw flour, it will not expand very much during the
cooking, so you can fill the basin to within 1.25 cm (1/2 inch) of
the rim. Take a square of greaseproof or waxed paper, oil or butter
it (I didn't bother, but did oil the basins. I don't have a 3-pint
one, so used 1 2-pint and 1 1-pint one, 2 pints being ample for my
family for Christmas dinner) and tie it over the top of the basin
with string.
Steam in boiling water for 5 hours. Allow pudding to cool completely
before wrapping it, still in its basin, in fresh greaseproof paper
plus a layer of foil. Store in a cool dark place.
On Christmas Day, steam for a further two hours.
Bissell/Levy suggest serving this with creme fraiche, rather than the
traditional brandy butter (don't ask - not to be discussed on THIS
mailing list!!!), and I do think this is one occasion when a LITTLE
cream is permissible!
Servings: 8
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