Voila...I give you plum pudding! These pudding will 'cure' until Christmas and when ready to eat will be decorated with holly, flamed just before serving and served with hard sauce. For purposes of showing you what one looks like, I unmolded this to photograph it for you. A very plain Jane plum pudding.
I must be out of my mind. I made 10 of these. That is 20 quarts of plum pudding!For one 2 quart plum pudding, cut this to 1/10th of this recipe.
This is roughly what I used:
2 # dried currants
5 # dark raisins
2# golden raisins
1 1/2 # candied orange peel
1 1/2# candied lemon peel
1 1/2# candied citron
5# shelled chopped mixed nuts (pecans, walnuts, almonds)
And 3 1/2 cups of ground suet. As the puddings steam, the suet melts and turns the puddings into magic.
Soak 30 pieces of whole wheat bread in 2 cups of apple cider.
Measure 10 cups of flour, 10 teaspoons of baking soda, 10 teaspoons of salt, 10 teaspoons of cinnamon, 7 1/2 teaspoons of ground mace and 2 1/2 teaspoons of ground nutmeg.Add 10 cups of dark brown sugar.
Add this flour mixture to the fruit and nuts and stir to coat.
Crack 15 eggs into a bowl.Add the bread and cider and mooch it all together. Add it to the fruit, nut and flour mixture.
Stir in about 1 cup of cognac or brandy and two large jars of black currant jam. Let it sit for about 1/2 hour.
Spray the inside of you pudding mold or an oven proof bowl with butter or cooking spray. Fill the mold to about 1 inch from the top with pudding. I over filled and it was a mess. The suet ran over the edges and my kitchen was filled with smoke. I knew this was going to happen and I filled the molds full anyway....I can really be an idiot sometimes.
Cover each pudding with waxed paper and use a rubber band to hold it in place. If you are using a pudding mold, place the lid firmly on top.
Place the puddings in a heavy roasting pan and fill the pan with water 3/4 of the way to the top. Cover the entire pan with heavy tin foil and steam in a 300 degree oven for 6 hours. As soon as you remove them from the oven, uncover them while still in the molds and pour 1/2 cup of cognac or brandy over them. Cover them again and let them cool. Place them in the refrigerator to ripen. These can be made months in advance and kept refrigerated. They should be made at least 1 month in advance. If you think you hate candied fruit (think bad fruit cake) don't dismiss this recipe. These taste nothing like that. Through the hours of steaming, the suet melts and all of the ingredients form into this chewy textured peace of heaven. And the hard sauce pushes it over the top. I will post the hard sauce recipe when I make it. Or you can google it if you want one sooner. To reheat it, steam it for 2 hours and serve it hot from the oven.
There is nothing quite as wonderful as walking into a darkened dining room after Christmas dinner with the plum pudding flaming! Serve each piece topped with some hard sauce which melts over the pudding.
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