Catholic Recipe: Plum Pudding V
INGREDIENTS
- 1 pound seedless raisins, chopped
- 1/4 pound candied peels citron, orange, lemon, chopped
- 1/4 pound figs, chopped
- 1/2 pound beef suet, chopped
- 4 cups fine dry bread crumbs
- 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
- 1/2 cup sifted all-purpose flour
- 1/2 cup brown sugar, firmly packed
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1 cup cider or fruit juice
- sherry flavoring to taste
- 6 eggs, beaten
Sauce:
- 2 egg yolks
- 1 cup confectioners' sugar
- 1/4 cup heavy cream, whipped
- vanilla
- sherry flavoring to taste
Details
Serves: 6-8
Prep Time: 5 1/2-6 hours
Difficulty: ★★★☆
Cost: ★★★☆
For Ages: 15+
Origin: England
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Also Called: Christmas Pudding
This dessert, a famous national Christmas dish in England from medieval times, is made of ground or hacked plums, flour, eggs, bread crumbs, and various other ingredients (fruits and spices). It used to be bound up in a cloth, boiled on Christmas morning, and served with great ceremony, often saturated with alcohol and set aflame while being borne into the dining room, as Dickens describes so vividly in his A Christmas Carol.
DIRECTIONS
Mix fruits, suet, bread crumbs, spices. Add flour, sugar, salt, fruit juice, flavoring, beaten eggs; stir until smooth. Fill pudding mold 2/3 full. Tie oiled paper tightly over top; put mold into saucepan of boiling water. Steam 5-6 hours.
Sauce: Beat egg yolks. Add sugar; continue beating until smooth. Fold in whipped cream. Flavor with vanilla, sherry. Serve over warm pudding.
Yield, 6-8 servings
Recipe Source: Catholic Cookbook, The by William I. Kaufman, The Citadel Press, New York, 1965
