Christmas Pudding Recipe | How To Make A Traditional Christmas Pudding

'Tis the season to be jolly, make merry and to feast on some real good food. Try this Christmas Pudding recipe and let Christmas be your golden chance to cook up some magic in your kitchen and serve food that shines. Ditch that run-of-the-mill Christmas plum cake this year for a tastier, better and richer Christmas dessert recipe - the old-fashioned traditional Christmas Pudding that’s steeped in tradition and history. Christmas puddings have been associated with Christmas celebrations since the 16th century. This indulgent Christmas pudding recipe loaded with rich dry fruits soaked in rum is a pure indulgence that’s hard to resist.

So, make this Christmas feast unforgettable for your family and relatives with this easy Christmas pudding recipe.
 

Why make Christmas pudding instead of a regular plum cake?

There are many reasons to choose this British Christmas pudding recipe for your Christmas lunch menu or any other festive occasion like the New Year’s Eve. First, the ratio of dried fruits and nuts over the ratio of flour is higher in the pudding as compared to a plum Christmas cake, which makes it healthier, richer and tastier, making it an obvious choice for a Christmas feast. Another reason to choose this classic Christmas pudding recipe is that it can be prepared not days but months in advance. In many cold regions across the world, people prepare the spirit doused pudding on Stirrup Sunday and leave it to age for a month, finally serving it for Christmas feast. It is believed that the rum matures the pudding as it ages thus imparting a luscious taste to the pudding. Loaded with rum and dried fruits, it strikes off all the boxes for a perfect celebratory dessert.
 

Christmas pudding never gets outdated

Of course, the Christmas pudding is known for its longevity, which means that the pun is well intended, but it also goes far back in the history of being served as a Christmas tradition for hundreds of years.

Apart from many famous cookery books, the Christmas pudding recipe has also found its place in literature. The lovingly warm and detailed description of the traditional Christmas pudding recipe and its preparation by Charles Dickens in his famous book, ‘The Christmas Carol’ brought this dessert a special stardom. It was only then that the so-called Plum pudding or figgy pudding became synonymous to Christmas and was rechristened as Christmas pudding.
 

Although the modern day Christmas pudding recipe is prepared in a greased bowl or pudding basin, during the Victorian era it was prepared in greased cloth slathered in flour, which was tightly strung and suspended in boiling water for hours, the result was a cannon ball of dense pudding, jam-packed with dry-fruits, oozing oodles of rum and brandy.

What is Christmas Pudding made up of?

Another interesting fact about the classic Christmas pudding recipe is that though it is sometimes called plum pudding, but it does not use any fresh plums as an ingredient. As opposed to the common belief, Christmas pudding ingredients are mainly dried fruits like sultanas, currants, raisins, glazed cherries, prunes (dried plums – and that’s where the name probably comes from), rum and beer apart from the flour, almond flour, breadcrumbs, butter, sugar and spices.
 

What does Christmas Pudding taste like?

In simple words, this pudding recipe tastes like a Christmas celebration in your mouth. The best Christmas pudding recipe results in a dense dessert that delivers copious amounts of dried fruits in every bite. The plump fruit has been soaked in rum, beer, and dark brown sugar, and impart these flavours to the pudding making it taste boozy, fruity, and rich at the same time. A Christmas plum cake might come to your mind looking at the list of Christmas pudding ingredients, but the taste varies substantially. The aromatic spice mix elevates the flavours of the pudding and makes it pleasantly warm and zesty. The slow cooking of sugar leads to caramelization of sugar which leads to a gooey and moist texture of the pudding and a toffee taste unlike the cake. Fruity, boozy, spicy, rich, sweet and Christmassy flavours best describe a perfectly cooked traditional Christmas pudding. 
 

How to make Christmas pudding?

Though you won’t find a quick Christmas pudding recipe, here’s an easy Christmas pudding recipe that can be prepared at home without much hassle. This recipe yields an amazing dessert that is the result of patience sans the hard work. All you need is the right ingredients in the right proportions and a bit of patience. The Yummefy Christmas pudding recipe uses prunes, sultanas, raisins and glazed cherries but you may use dried fruits of your choice, for instance, candied fruits, dried apricots, dates, and currants, keeping the total amount of dry fruit by weight the same. We would suggest you refrain from using fresh fruits.
 

This recipe entails preparing the pudding in three simple steps over a course of three days. The first step involves soaking all the dried fruits in rum and dark beer along with brown sugar for 24 hours. The dry fruit absorb all this goodness and plump up and double in size. Next day, fresh breadcrumbs, all-purpose flour (maida), almond flour (or powdered almonds), spice mix, cinnamon powder, nutmeg powder, glacé cherries, grated butter, and lightly beaten eggs are added to the mixture and the whole mix is left to marinate for another 24 hours. This step ensures that the flavours blend well and get evenly distributed across all ingredients.
 

The real cooking is left for the third day when the mixture is transferred and tightly packed inside a greased heat-proof bowl. Our Christmas pudding recipe video shows the important details of how the pudding bowl is covered with butter paper, aluminium foil and string, creating a tight seal and prepping it for the long cooking process in the water bath or bain-marie. A pleat is created in the butter paper and the foil, allowing room for pudding to expand.
 

The boiler pan in which the pudding bowl is to be placed should be deep and wide enough to accommodate the pudding bowl or basin with a trivet (or a small steel bowl placed upside down) leaving some space on the sides as well. The pudding bowl is then placed on trivet and hot water is poured around it to submerge it halfway up the sides of the pudding bowl. Once the water comes to a boil, the boiler is covered with a lid and left to simmer for six hours on low heat.

How to serve and garnish Christmas pudding?

If you have followed our Christmas pudding recipe perfectly then there’s no reason that your pudding will not turn out perfect. A Christmas pudding can be prepared months ahead and stored (still in the bowl, covered in foil and tied) in a cool, dark and dry place to age. We suggest you prepare the pudding a week or so before Christmas. On Christmas day, place the pudding in the water bath in the sealed bowl like you did earlier and simmer for two hours before serving it. Let the pudding cool down a little and then cover the bowl with a plate or cake platter and flip it over in a quick motion, so that the Christmas pudding is placed upside down on the plate.
 

The most traditional image of a Christmas pudding would show it decorated with a sprig of holly or holly berries but since these are inedible (poisonous in fact), we would recommend you steer clear of it, instead use some edible garnishes like glacé cherries and a dusting of icing sugar.

Another amazing quality of this Christmas pudding recipe is that you can add a bit of drama to it by setting it alight at the table. If you are up for this little adventure, make sure you do it safely. Flambé your Christmas pudding by pouring hot brandy on top and light it up. Douse the fire by placing a lid on top. 
 

Christmas pudding is a high calorie dessert, therefore make sure to serve moderate size slices. Lashings of brandy butter or whipped heavy cream can be used as an accompaniment to relish this pudding. The dessert in itself is boozy enough but you can pair it with the fruity Ruby Port or nutty flavours of Tawny Port that will complement the fruity and nutty flavours of the Christmas pudding recipe and make it sing.
 

So, indulge yourself all you want this winter with the best Christmas pudding recipe. Make yourself one, and as you master it, make more to share and spread the holiday cheer.

If you’re getting into the holiday spirit, may also want to try our:

Hot chocolate
Mulled Wine
Indian Roast Chicken
Mushroom Soup
Coleslaw
Chicken Salad
Queen of Puddings
Granola Recipe

Or see all our Christmas Recipes right here!