Frances Bissell's Low-fat Christmas Pudding
Author/Submitted by: Servings: 8 Categories:
Desserts
/
Low-Fat/Low-Cal
/
Puddings
Ingredients: 230
grams
(8 oz,
4 loosely packed
Cups) fresh wholemal
Breadcrumbs 230
grams
(8 oz,
2 cups) EACH of
Roughly chopped muscatel
(black) raisins
Sultanas (yellow raisins)
And dried apricots 60
grams
(2 oz,
3/4 cup) crumbled
Almond macaroons or
Amaretti 60
grams
(2 oz,
3/4 cup) chopped
Almonds 60
grams
(2 oz,
1/2 cup) ground or
Flaked almonds 1
Grated appple 1
tablespoon
Grated orange zest 1
teaspoon
Ground cinnamon 1
teaspoon
Ground mace 1/2
teaspoon
Ground cardamom (I had none
So used cumin,
which worked
As well!) 1/2
teaspoon
Ground cloves (I used whole
And put them in the food
Processor
With the bread! Again,
it
Worked) 1/2
teaspoon
Ground allspice 2
tablespoons
Orange marmalade or candied
Orange peel
Juice of 1 orange 4
medium
Free-range eggs 6
tablespoons
Or 1 miniature bottle of
Cognac 140
milliliters
(5 fl oz,
scant 2/3 cup)
Fortified muscat wine, port
Marsala
Or rich oloroso sherry
Directions:
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!
Incidentally, the tradition is that every member of the family stirs the pudding mixture while making a wish....
Recipe typed by Annabel smith but taken from Paul Levy's "The Feast of Christmas) Converted to MM by Donna Webster donna@webster.demon.co.uk
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