This Sunday is Stir up Sunday, traditionally a time to get together and create Christmas pudding or cake in time for the festive season. The idea is that everyone in the house has a go at stirring the mix of the pudding. (It’s meant to be lucky but I think it just means that your Christmas Pudding is mixed really well!)
This recipe is for use with the microwave. I use my microwave a lot. This may be because it is a dual cook microwave and I can cook dinners in it as well as using it purely as a microwave. At one stage, we didn’t have an oven at all, just the dual cook microwave! Anyway, I have quite a few recipes that use the microwave only and this is one of them. It takes the cooking time down from 6 – 8 hours of steaming on the hob to 8 – 10 minutes in the microwave. This recipe uses Golden Syrup instead of Treacle and so the pudding is quite light in colour when cooked but you can use Treacle if you prefer and get a darker Christmas Pudding.
Christmas Pudding
Ingredients.
75g/3oz Plain Flour
50g/2oz Dark Brown Sugar
75g/3oz Vegetable Suet
75g/3oz Fresh Breadcrumbs
350g/12oz Mixed Dried Fruit
2 Tbsp Golden Syrup
2 Tbsp Brandy
2 Tbsp Ale
2 Medium Eggs
1 tsp Mixed Spice
1 Lemon – Juice and rind
1 tbsp Marmalade
Method.
1. Place the dried fruit in a bowl and cover with boiling water. Leave it to stand for an hour while you are getting all the other ingredients ready.
2. Strain the fruit and add the Brandy and the Ale to it.
3. Put all the dry ingredients into a large bowl and then mix in the Fruit, Eggs, Golden Syrup, Lemon juice and rind and the marmalade.
4. Mix all the ingredients together until really well blended.
5. Grease 2 x 1 pint pudding basins and divide the mix between the two evenly.
6. Cover loosely with cling film and cook each pudding for 8 – 10 mins on MEDIUM in the microwave.
To store your pudding, place a greaseproof paper over the top of the pudding and cover with clingfilm and place in the fridge.
You can reheat your pudding by either heating the whole pudding (if you are going to use it all) for 2 – 3 minutes on HIGH. Or you can slice it and reheat the individual slices for 30 – 60 seconds on HIGH. This is better if you think it is going to take you two or three sessions to get through it.