The Best Traditional Christmas Pudding Ideas

This the season to be jolly, and nothing makes the whole family happier than seeing what’s for dessert after a bountiful Christmas meal! The trend in desserts over the past few years have moved away from the more modern takes on Christmas to a more traditional meal, taking in all of the rich flavours that modern recipes seem to miss out on.

When it comes to Christmas desserts, nothing says it better than the traditional Christmas pudding. This rich, dark mouth-wateringly moist delight will always go down a treat after a hearty meal. With its deep filling and velvety smooth interior, the Christmas pud has been a mainstay for many families over the Xmas period.

Delight Your Guest’s Taste Buds This Year!

Featuring dried fruits, liquors and sumptuously rich additions really bring out all of the history and cooking time involved in creating this festive treat. Traditional ingredients such as plum, cranberry and fig make for a delight on the taste buds and offer your guests something truly special to end their meal with.

Source: www.driedworld.com

When cooking your Christmas pudding, some of the things to keep in mind are to ensure if you are using a liquor or alcohol, that you fully soak your ingredients in it for an extended period of time. This will really bring out the rich flavours in the liquor and ensure that every bite will be luxurious.

Steam For As Long As Possible

All traditional Christmas puddings should be steamed evenly to really bring out the best flavour. Steam for several hours to bring out the best in your pud, and ensure that the pan is only halfway full of water to make sure that the pud will cook all of the way through.

Many common cooking problems arise from not cooking the Christmas pud for long enough! The slower the cooking time the better is a rule of thumb for Christmas puddings, so make sure you have plenty of time to spend in the kitchen and are not out last-minute shopping for prezzies.

Undercooking Means Tough, Tasteless Pud!

Undercooking the Christmas pudding can make the pud seem very pale and taste bland. The longer cooking time allows for the sugars in the fruits to caramelise, leaving you with a luxuriously sticky treat.

Dairy and Gluten-Free Christmas Pudding

Vegan, dairy-free, and a vast variety of gluten free Christmas puddings have also become popular in recent years thanks to the many retailers that produce them using traditional recipes. But don’t worry, these puds do not lose any of their rich flavour, and many of your guests will not be able to tell the difference, so if you are sensitive to gluten or dairy, you won’t have to miss out!

Many traditional pudding makers have now come out with a range of modern twists, but backed with a traditional recipe. These include Pud For All Season’s Double Choc & Orange with Cointreau for those chocoholics out there, as well as a Date and Butterscotch pud that is the sweetest treat you’re likely to meet.

Why not go traditional this Christmas and enjoy one of the most memorable puddings you’re ever likely to try. Indulge in rich, velvety, boozey desserts that will bring the finale of Christmas dinner to a close in style for your friends and family this year.

The Christmas Favourites That Bring In The Yuletide Appetite!

Nothing brings with it the spirit of Christmas as much as sitting down with the family to enjoy a traditional Christmas meal. A lunch with all of the trimmings, this glorious feast of a meal has evolved over the years to involve a number of special treats that can only truly be enjoyed at this time of year. 

Let’s take a look at some of the favourites that no Australian can spend Christmas without!

The traditional roasted meat still continues to be the most popular food served at Christmas lunch, being a mainstay of many countries’ Xmas feast. Usually wrapped in foil and slow roasted, the roasted chicken, turkey or ham is often basted with an assortment of different sauces according to varying recipes.

Don’t Forget the Extras!

‘All the trimmings’ commonly refers to the food accompanying the main roasted meat on the plate and usually includes potatoes roasted in goose or duck fat, sage and onion or pork stuffing for chicken or turkey, or a modern twist of pistachio stuffing on a slow roasted ham joint. Carrots, peas and other legumes are often added, along with gravy and a collection of sauces to tantalise the pallet.

Some families choose to create a more modern Christmas meal and include tasty recipes for seafood including king prawn, lobsters and crab and accompany them with seasonal salads and Christmas-themed dressing sauces.

Traditional Damper

Damper has made a trendy return to many Christmas table each year as it is seen as an original Australian tradition, by modern standards. Damper consists of simple soda bread that was eaten in the bush for many decades and has turned into an iconic dish for good reason.

Often eaten with honey, jam, syrup or a simple serving of butter, why not break bread at the Christmas table this year using a home-grown loaf of Damper.

For those with a sweet tooth, you cannot overlook the traditional deserts and puddings at Christmas time to truly delight your guests. You can choose from the traditional Christmas pudding that is velvety smooth with a rich taste (alcoholic or non-) and offers the perfect way to round off any Xmas mega-luncheon.

Find the Winning Recipe for Christmas!

Mince pies and trifle go down a treat in just about every household, with traditional recipes found in every family. If you really wanted to be on Santa’s naughty list this Christmas, you could take advantage of some of the boutique Christmas puddings specialists that offer hand-made, gourmet puddings and cakes delivered to your door in time for Christmas day.

Treat yourself to a little bit extra and enjoy the gift of decadence with one of the traditional cooked-to-order after-dinner delicacies from Pud for All Seasons. Make this year that little extra special and your family with thank you a million times over.

Hunt down some of the best roast recipes and you will be able to spend the remainder of 2016 with a very satisfied appetite!

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Treat Your Guests To A Sumptuous Home-Baked Traditional Plum Pudding

When it comes to desserts, nothing delights guests more than enjoying a delicious home baked traditional plum pudding to end an enchanting meal. Fancy afters and culinary experiments can take a back seat when it comes to savoury treats, because with tradition comes heritage and with plum pudding comes smiles all round.

To start off on your quest to bake the most sumptuous traditional plum pudding you are going to need the very best ingredients you can find. A good pudding is as much about the baking as it is the tasting, so take note of what you will need and do your best to find each item.

You Will Need:

• 85g of self-raising flour
• 85g fresh breadcrumbs from white bread
• 140g of muscovado sugar
• ¾ of a tablespoon of mixed spice
• 140g of shredded suet
• 140g of raisins
• 140g of sultanas
• 140g of currants
• 25g of varied candy peel
• 25g of glacé cherries
• 1 small grated carrot
• 2 tablespoons of black treacle
• 2 tablespoons of your favourite sweet stout
• Very finely grates orange and lemon zest
• And finally a rich brandy to pour over after baking

First up, stir the flour, suet, mixed spice, sugar, and breadcrumbs into a bowl and begin mixing. After the mixture has evened out, add the grated carrot, the glacé cherries, the peel and the fruit and stir well to mix these ingredients together.

After this has been stirred for a minute or two, you can add the rest of the ingredients to the mix and continue to stir until the mixture comes together nicely in the bowl. Continue to beat the mixture with alternate folding to allow the air to be mixed out and for the ingredients to combine well together.

Prepare The Bowl for Steaming

Gather a large pudding bowl of roughly 1.2 to 1.5L in capacity and butter the bowl well. Further butter a sheet of greaseproof paper and line the bowl accordingly. Empty the mixture into the bowl, ensuring that you pat the mixture down well enough that it produces a rich deep texture, as well as allowing for the pudding to rise a little during cooking.

Add on another buttered sheet of greaseproof paper on top of the mixture and secure the pudding in place with the aid of pudding cloth (if you have some) or just a regular breathable heavy cloth that isn’t likely to catch fire whilst in the oven. A small teacloth will suffice, so long as you tie it down with string over the top of the bowl.

Bring out the Moistness with a Long Cooking Time

Stand the bowl in a saucer and fill with boiling water and then cover again to start the cooking process. Puddings are steamed to give it a velvety, rich and moist texture that baking cannot compete with. The traditional puddings are steamed for a long period of time, the more steam the better, but in this instance, 8 hours is a reasonable cooking time to provide a delicious pudding with a delicious texture.

After the steaming process is finished, remove the pudding cloth, dishcloth or teacloth that you have used to cover the pudding and cover with a fresh and clean cloth to allow for storage. Store the pudding in a cool and dry place to ensure no outside interference messes with your pud!

A Loving Spoonful

 

Pour over a few tablespoons of brandy every once in a while to allow it to absorb the full richness of the flavour. Pour on a few extra spoonfuls just before serving and stead again for a further 2 hours to bring the pudding to its maximum deliciousness.

A traditional pudding requires a tasty meal to be enjoyed beforehand, as it is the perfect accompaniment to any rich meal. Traditionally, Christmas time was the best time to enjoy this festive highlight, but with so many different ways of cooking a traditional pud, this may be the time to pass on the tradition and create your very own family favourite recipe.

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How to Keep Your Christmas Cheer

As we all know, Christmas is a joyful time filled with good food, good drink and showing love or friends and family with gifts. Generally, everybody’s in good spirits as they’re on holiday and this can add to how special an occasion it is. Part of the magic of Christmas time is in the fact that it only comes around once a year, and for some of us who are working around the clock to make it happen, once a year is plenty!

But that doesn’t mean that we can’t take some of the magic of Christmas and enjoy it during other parts of the year. The food is one thing that is very traditional; the quintessential Christmas day lunch includes everything from pork, ham and turkey or even seafood, which is enjoyed in many Australian homes as an entrée and is suitable due to the warm weather. 

Dessert is a must on Christmas day and more often than not it includes Christmas pudding. The great thing is that you don’t need an excuse to indulge in these kinds of foods. Even when Christmas is gone, you can create that same environment and feeling with just the right ingredients.

Calling up your friends or family over to your place and enjoying some delicious traditional Christmas puddings can bring back the holiday feeling. But they’re a great companion on lonely nights in front of the fire too! Being originally intended to be enjoyed in the winter months, Christmas puddings might be described as a big hug and are sure to warm you up.  To fully enjoy the pudding, you’ll want to mix it up with some quality sauce to stir up the flavor a little.

But by no means should you make yourself a one-pudding man/woman! 


Pud For All Seasons has much more to offer in addition to the classic Christmas pudding. Check out our full range, which includes cranberry and white chocolate pudding, double chocolate & orange with cointreau and another classic Date and Butterscotch pudding!