It's that time of year again!

image from Freepik

It's hard to believe that a whole year has gone by since I was last posting about my annual Christmas pudding-making!  I made half as much again as the original Larkin Christmas Pudding recipe this year, but obviously the method is exactly the same no matter how much you make:

340g/12oz sultanas

340g/12oz raisins

170g/6oz cherries, halved or quartered

227g/8oz finely chopped mixed candied peel

227g/8oz plain flour

1 level teaspoon ground ginger

1 level teaspoon mixed spice

1 level teaspoon nutmeg ~ freshly grated if possible

454g/1lb soft brown sugar

227g/8oz breadcrumbs

284g/10oz shredded suet ~ beef or vegetable, whichever you prefer

6 eggs, beaten

142ml/5fl oz stout, such as Guinness

142ml/5fl oz brandy

grated rind and juice of 1 orange

142ml/5fl oz milk (approximately)

Grease whatever size of pudding basins you would like your finished Christmas puddings to be.  This recipe will make enough to fill four, one pint, pudding basins each one of which will give about six servings.

Put all the dried fruit into a very large bowl, along with the stout, brandy, and the rind/juice of the orange.  Leave to one side.

Sift the flour and spices into another large bowl, then stir in the sugar, breadcrumbs, and suet.  Beat the eggs in a separate bowl. 

Now's the time to work those biceps and start adding the dry ingredients to the wet, three or four spoonfuls at a time, stirring well after each addition.  Last year I made the recipe twice as I was making double the amount of puddings.  This year, as I was "only" making half as much again, I decided to throw caution to the wind and attempt to fit a pint into a half pint pot as it were ~ it wasn't easy, as I'm sure you can imagine 😏 I should have been more sensible, especially as my toe was hurting so much, and I ended up having to sit down for a while every so often.  Anyhoo, I'm sure you would be much more sensible than me my lovelies 😄

Getting back to the recipe, when you get towards the end of the dry ingredients you will have to make a judgement call on how much milk to add.  I find that this varies from year-to-year, depending on how absorbent the dry ingredients happen to be and also if I've slopped in a tad more stout/brandy than I'd intended!  The mixture should be a soft dropping consistency. 

Divide the mixture between your well greased pudding basins.  This year I made one large pudding along with five smaller ones.  As I've told you before I used to faff about with a doubled-up sheet of greaseproof paper, pleated in the centre, to cover the puddings.  A couple of years ago I had a brainwave and used cake tin liners instead, and have continued to use them ever since as it's much easier.  Depending on what I have to hand, I then hold said liner/greaseproof paper in place with either string or an elastic band.  You use whichever method suits you best 😊

I also used to either use a pudding basin net or make a string handle to lift the puddings in and out of the steamer.  Now I just don my trusty rubber washing up gloves as I find it easier.  Just make sure to take care when removing the pudding as the basin will be very hot, and there will also be a lot of steam.

The old aluminium saucepan belonged to my paternal Grandma and it only ever gets used for steaming puddings.  I've had the steamer for donkey's years; the poor thing is a tad battered as it had been dropped a number of times over the years on the quarry tiled floor of our old kitchen!  It's still perfectly serviceable though so I don't see any need to get a new one 😏

Bring the pan of water to the boil and place the pudding, in the steamer, on top; turn the water down to a low simmer.  Depending on the size of basin used, the puddings will take 5 to 7 hours to steam.  I steam my one pint puddings for 6 hours each, and the larger ones for the full 7.  To keep an eye on things, I set my timer for one hour at a time so that I remember to go and check on the water level in the saucepan.  Keep it topped up as necessary with boiling water from the kettle.

At the end of the steaming period, take the pudding from the steamer (remember to take care!) and discard the cake liner/greaseproof paper.  Cover with a clean tea-towel and leave on one side to cool.  

When the pudding is totally cold remove it from the basin, wrap in a double sheet of greaseproof paper or baking parchment, then wrap again tightly in cooking foil.

The puddings should be stored in a cool, dry, place, or they could even be frozen if you'd prefer.  We usually freeze what's left of the pudding we have on Christmas Day.  You'll have to remember to defrost them thoroughly before reheating.  With all the sugar and alcohol in them they should keep well in a cool, dry, place, though.  We have one at Christmas, obviously, but it's also our family tradition to have another at Easter.

When you are ready to eat your Christmas puddings, they can either be gently steamed for about 1 1/2 hours or reheated in the microwave ~ I take the latter route as it's simpler when there's so much other cooking going on.  I really can't tell you how long to reheat the pudding in the microwave as it's very much a trial-and-error process depending on your own particular machine.  I heat the pudding on full power for five minutes, then in short bursts of a minute or so until it is thoroughly hot all the way through.

Serve your pudding with whatever your family likes best: rum/brandy butter, cream, a white (brandy or rum, perhaps) sauce, custard, ice-cream, etc.  We like to have ours with either cream or a white sauce flavoured with brandy.  I make the sauce very simply, rather along the lines of packet-mix custard ~ just substitute cornflour in place of the custard powder and add brandy to taste!

You can tweak this recipe to your heart's content with the proportions and varieties of dried fruit, so long as the total amount remains about the same.  You could also have a little less fruit and add in some nuts.  You can use rum instead of brandy if you would prefer ~ I use brandy as I'm really not keen on rum.  Make the recipe your own by using the fruit (and nuts) that you and your family like to eat.

Enjoy 😊 

Christmas in October

image from Clipart Library

Yup, it's that time again when the house smells deliciously Christmassy and the kitchen is steamy for days 😄

I did a really big supermarket shop the week of the great fuchsia massacre, with the intention of setting-to and getting the Christmas puddings made the day after the girls had done their stuff out in the garden.  And, for once, I actually got my arse in gear and did what I'd planned to do 😉  I was also full of good intentions to share this year's big cooking exercise sooner but to be honest I felt a bit sort of tired and "flat" last week.  I think all the work in the garden is catching up with me a tad, so apologies for last week's radio silence.

Anyhoo, better late than never, so here's the recipe for the Larkin Christmas Pudding ~ along with a smattering of photos for good measure.  Over the years I have refined and tweaked this recipe so instead of just pointing you in the direction of a previous post as usual, I thought it was high time I actually rewrote it!  

I should also point out that I had more puddings to make this year, so I bought double the amount of ingredients.  However I still followed the normal recipe, simply making it twice, as I don't have any containers large enough to hold all those ingredients to make double the amount in one go!  I should think it would also be no mean feat to stir double the amount of everything together 😳

340g/12oz sultanas

340g/12oz raisins

170g/6oz cherries, halved or quartered

227g/8oz finely chopped mixed candied peel

227g/8oz plain flour

1 level teaspoon ground ginger

1 level teaspoon mixed spice

1 level teaspoon nutmeg ~ freshly grated if possible

454g/1lb soft brown sugar

227g/8oz breadcrumbs

284g/10oz shredded suet ~ beef or vegetable, whichever you prefer

6 eggs, beaten

142ml/5fl oz stout, such as Guinness

142ml/5fl oz brandy

grated rind and juice of 1 orange

142ml/5fl oz milk (approximately)

Grease whatever size of pudding basins you would like your finished Christmas puddings to be.  This recipe will make enough to fill four, one pint, pudding basins each one of which will give about six servings.

Put all the dried fruit into a very large bowl, along with the stout, brandy, and the rind/juice of the orange.  Leave to one side.

Smells so delicious 😋

Sift the flour and spices into another large bowl, then stir in the sugar, breadcrumbs, and suet.  In a separate bowl, beat the eggs and mix in the stout, brandy, and orange juice; add to the dried fruit, mixing in well.

Now's the time to work those biceps and start adding the dry ingredients to the wet, three or four spoonfuls at a time, stirring well after each addition.  When you get towards the end of the dry ingredients you will have to make a judgement call on how much milk to add.  I find that this varies from year-to-year, depending on how absorbent the dry ingredients happen to be.  The mixture should be a soft dropping consistency. 

Divide the mixture between your well greased pudding basins.  This year I made one large pudding, along with a couple of smaller ones, from both batches of the recipe.  I used faff about with a doubled-up sheet of greaseproof paper, pleated in the centre, to cover the puddings.  A couple of years ago I had a brainwave and used cake tin liners instead ~ I know, genius, right 😏  Depending on what I have to hand, I then hold said liner/greaseproof paper in place with either string or an elastic band.  You use whichever method suits you best 😊

I also used to either use a pudding basin net or make a string handle to lift the puddings in and out of the steamer.  Now I just don my trusty rubber washing up gloves as I find it easier.  Just make sure to take care when removing the pudding as the basin will be very hot, and there will also be a lot of steam.

The old aluminium saucepan belonged to my paternal Grandma and it only ever gets used for steaming puddings.  I've had the steamer for donkey's years; the poor thing is a tad battered as it has been dropped a number of times over the years on the quarry tiled floor of our old kitchen!

So, bring the pan of water to the boil and place the pudding, in the steamer, on top; turn the water down to a low simmer.  Depending on the size of basin used, the puddings will take 5 to 7 hours to steam.  I steam my one pint puddings for 6 hours each, and the larger ones for the full 7.  To keep an eye on things, I set my timer for one hour at a time so that I remember to go and check on the water level in the saucepan.  Keep it topped up as necessary with boiling water from the kettle.

At the end of the steaming period, take the pudding from the steamer (remember to take care!) and discard the cake liner/greaseproof paper.  Cover with a clean tea-towel and leave on one side to cool.  When the pudding is totally cold remove it from the basin, wrap in a double sheet of greaseproof paper or baking parchment, then wrap again tightly in cooking foil.

The puddings should be stored in a cool place, or they could even be frozen if you'd prefer.  You'll have to remember to defrost them thoroughly before reheating.  With all the sugar and alcohol in them they should keep well in a cool place, though.  We have one at Christmas, obviously, but it's also a family tradition to have another at Easter.

When you are ready to eat your Christmas puddings, they can either be gently steamed for about 1 1/2 hours or reheated in the microwave ~ we take the latter route as it's simpler when there's so much other cooking going on.  I really can't tell you how long to reheat the pudding in the microwave as it's very much a trial-and-error process depending on your own particular machine.  I heat the pudding on full power for five minutes, then in short burst of a minute or so until it is thoroughly hot all the way through.

Serve your pudding with whatever your family likes best: rum/brandy butter, cream, a white (brandy or rum, perhaps) sauce, custard, ice-cream, etc.  We like to have ours with either cream or a white sauce flavoured with brandy.  I make the sauce very simply, like packet-mix custard ~ just substitute cornflour in place of the custard powder and add brandy to taste!

You can tweak this recipe to your heart's content with the proportions and varieties of dried fruit, so long as the total amount remains about the same.  You could also have a little less fruit and add nuts instead.  You can use rum instead of brandy if you would prefer ~ I use brandy as I'm really not keen on rum.  Make the recipe your own by using the fruit (and nuts) that you and your family like to eat.

Enjoy 😊 

A little here, a little there

As well as spreading out tons of stone chippings and building flat-packed wardrobes, we have also been doing bits and pieces in various parts of the garden ~ little bites of that elephant 😉

I took a little time out, though, to take a couple of photos of the beautiful hips on two shrubs in this more shady border in the kitchen garden.  The photo above is a hypericum...

...and this is, obviously, a rose.  I'm pretty sure that it's Rosa Rugosa Alba but I really didn't fancy getting in amongst all those thorny stems to double-check 😯 

Our latest garden endeavours have mostly revolved around sorting out the old fruit cage area, as we've decided it needs to be totally overhauled.  The plan is to take out the central bed entirely, just leaving the two on either side.  We're going to set out a little seating area here in due course.  

Along with the weeds (!) in this bed there are a couple of holly shrubs, a couple of ferns, and three (I think) alchemilla mollis.  The alchemilla obviously like it here, judging by the growth they have put on!  I am going to relocate them to the back garden, so let's hope they will like their new homes as much.

Once the centre bed has been cleared out and dismantled, we are going to use the pieces of wood to make an extra layer on this right-hand bed ~ it will give us somewhere to put at least some of the soil so we don't end up having to make another soil mountain out the back 😄  I shall have to temporarily dig out and pot up the hollies and ferns in this bed whilst we do this so that it's easier to build up the new additional layer and, of course, put in the extra soil to fill it up.

I drastically cut back the blackcurrant bushes in this bed to make it easier to move them.  Just look at those weeds!

They've now gone in the back garden to make a short row of blackcurrant "hedge", in the bed with the bay tree.  The straggly-looking plant on the right is a piece of escallonia that I decided to leave where it was when I tidied this bed a couple of weeks back.  It doesn't look like much even now, I know, but is looking way better than it was before LOL

Only one of the redcurrants have produced much fruit...

...and we got almost two pounds from it!

The two redcurrants which were at the front are now in the bed with the fruit trees.

At the back of the old bed was one redcurrant which I bought as a standard, and a tiny piece that had broken off from one of the other bushes.  I've now put the standard redcurrant (which rather surprisingly didn't have as much root as I was expecting to be honest) in a large tub, which I've positioned in the kitchen courtyard between the bay tree and rosemary.

The tiny "bonus" piece was really too small to just plonk down in the garden, I felt, so I've potted it up to let it grow on.  Hopefully it'll be large enough to plant somewhere in the garden next year.    

Moving into the greenhouse just for a quick look, I'm pleased to report that the tomatoes are now fruiting rather nicely.  I noticed earlier in the week that one or two are also ripening up, so fingers crossed that we'll get a decent crop 🤞

And to round off this post, I thought I'd show you the photo of a red admiral butterfly I took last Friday.  There wasn't any sunshine so I think it must just have been having a little rest rather than soaking up the rays 😊

Soon be on their way...

As you may recall, Beverly and I made this year's Christmas puddings a couple of weeks back.  With the planned strikes by Royal Mail over the next few weeks, I thought it best to send the puds for family and friends down south a little earlier than I would have done otherwise.

Here's the first two, ready to wing their way to my sister and parents 😊  Unsurprisingly, I didn't have cardboard boxes of the right size in my stash so I've cut down the ones I did have to make them a tad smaller LOL

I came across a lovely pattern on Lucy's blog for a sweet little crocheted snowflake, so I thought I'd make some for this year's puddings.  Lucy said that she made hers using a pure wool double knit yarn and four different size hooks.  I used a 4.5mm hook and yarn from my stash (of course!), James C Brett Baby Shimmer, which I've had for a very long time; I last used it when I made some Christmas pudding baubles a couple of years ago, for the "cream" topping.

When I came to crochet the second snowflake, I made a little mistake in round three by omitting the last chain 2 in each of the worked sections ooopsies!  Thankfully it didn't affect the appearance of the finished snowflake 😉  I finished mine off with a hanging loop, simply made with a length of 12 chain stitches attached to the tip of one of the icicle points.   

I confess that I was too lazy to block my snowflakes but I think they still look very pretty 😊

Hot 'n' steamy!

The kitchen, that is, not me personally 😏

Beverly and I made this year's Christmas puddings last week.  It's always nice to spend time with her making the puddings ~ plus, of course, it saves my poor 'ole arms as she kindly "volunteers" to flex her 30-years younger muscles doing the heavyweight mixing 😉 We had to use two mixing bowls this time around, as my "giant economy size" bowl sadly bit the dust after developing a crack right across the base.  Still, I can't really complain too much as I bought it in a charity shop and did get a fair amount of use out of it 😄

 The photo above shows the first pudding after it's seven hour ~ I know, right 😮~ steaming.  I must confess that I'm a teensy bit concerned that I may not have added quite enough milk to the mix this year, so it's fingers crossed that the puds aren't too dry!

If you would like to try out the Larkin family Christmas pudding recipe, here's a link to the post from 2020 ~ enjoy!

Veggie February.....

.....didn't happen.  Well, to be more accurate, it did for the first week but then I let it fizzle out.  I think it was very much to do with the fact that I was relying on ready-made vegetarian dishes rather than scratch-cooking.  I had my gall-bladder removed a number of years ago and get some pain if I eat too much fat, so although I didn't think to look at the ingredients list of the things I bought, I rather suspect that most had a higher fat content than I would usually be consuming with my normal omnivorous way of eating.  I was starting to feel uncomfortable and in a certain amount of low-level pain, so went back to my normal diet.

Funnily enough, I have in the past found it easier (and more comfortable digestion-wise) to follow a vegan rather than simply vegetarian diet.  I guess I eat much more cheese and processed food on a vegetarian eating plan than I do on either a vegan or omnivorous diet.  Of course, it's much easier these days to find ready-made vegan meals than it was when I was following a vegan diet a few years ago.  Back then I had to make most of my meals from scratch and I'll admit that although I felt healthier for those two years than I had done for most of my adult life, I found it hard to be the only vegan in the family so gradually slipped back to my omnivorous diet!

The interesting thing, though, is that Adrian (a proper meat-and-two-veg ~ with potatoes counting as one of the two veggies 😉 ~ man) has suggested we try to have a couple of vegetarian meals each week ~ totally amazing!  So for now, at least, I'm back to my omnivorous diet ~ with plans to spend some delightful hours reading through my small library of cookery books for yummy made-from-scratch vegetarian meals we will both love 😊

Kate & Sidney pudding...

 ...aka steak and kidney pudding 😉

I've made plenty of steak and kidney pies over the years but I kid-you-not, it must be over 30 years since I last made a pudding. For some reason we seem to have rather a lot of packets of suet in the cupboard at the moment, so I thought it would be a good idea to use some of it up! 

I stewed the meat on Tuesday, ready to make the pudding on Wednesday.  Suet pastry is simple enough to make, but I still managed to add a little too much water.  Thankfully, it's a very forgiving pastry so a good dusting of flour on the board and my hands brought it all back together again nicely.

The pudding gently steamed away for a couple of hours or so.....

and we had a portion each with a handful of chips and a pile of green beans.

Adrian was a very happy bunny as it's one of his favourite meals ~ and it was very tasty, even if I do say so myself 😋  

Did you succumb.....

.....to the Black Friday hype?  Usually it's an event that passes right over the top of my head but this year it just happened to coincide with me needing to top up my supplies of...

 ...loose-leaf Lady Grey tea, which I've been drinking since my conversion from tea-bags last year.  As it's only me who drinks the stuff I usually only buy one caddy from Twinings at a time but for Black Friday they had a discount of 20% ~ definitely not to be sniffed at, eh?  So, as you do, I bought myself.....four caddies!  Spending over £35 meant free delivery, too 😉

I've managed to squeeze all the caddies into my larder cupboard and am looking forward to many delicious cups of Lady Grey over the weeks (months!) to come 🍵   

A pudding experiment!

 During the early part of lockdown I used up the last of our pudding rice and couldn't get any more in our local Tesco, which was a tad annoying.  Anyhoo, I had a brainwave and got some arborio rice to try out as a substitute ~ after all it's short-grain like pudding rice is.  And then I promptly forgot all about making rice puds over the summer 😄  Fast-forward to Christmas Pudding Sunday and I found myself with fresh milk to use up from the leftover ingredients ~ finally time for that rice pudding experiment 😉

As you can see the arborio behaved just like the pudding rice does.  I got to thinking about what exactly "pudding rice" is, so did a quick search on Google and this is what the good 'ole BBC has to say on the matter:

"This is not a specific type of rice, but a generic description for short-grained white rice used for making rice pudding.  The term is rarely used outside England.  Whichever rice you use, the important thing is that it should give a soft, creamy, slightly sticky result."

So now we know!  If you too fancy a bowl of comforting, rib-sticking, rice pudding here's the very simple recipe I've used for donkey's years, which gives 4-6 servings:

5oz/140g short-grain rice, such as pudding or arborio rice

3oz/90g sugar

2 pints/1 litre milk

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Place all the ingredients, except the vanilla, in a saucepan and bring to the boil.  Turn down to a gentle simmer and cook for about 25-30 minutes, stirring from time-to-time to prevent the rice from sticking to the bottom of the pan.  When the rice is cooked, remove the pan from the heat and stir in the vanilla extract.

It's that time again!

I made the Christmas puddings yesterday ~ sadly, though, no "Mummy's little helper" this year.  Still, I had Radio 3 for company so it wasn't all bad 😉  So here is my annual post for the Larkin Christmas pudding recipe:

12 oz/340g sultanas

12 oz/340g raisins

6 oz/170g glace cherries, halved or quartered

8 oz/227g finely chopped mixed candied peel

8 oz/227g plain flour

1 level teaspoon ground ginger

1 level teaspoon mixed spice

1 level teaspoon nutmeg ~ freshly grated if possible

1 lb/454g soft brown sugar

8 oz/227g breadcrumbs

10 oz/284g shredded suet ~ beef or vegetable, whichever you prefer

6 eggs

5 fl oz/142ml barley wine or stout

5 fl/142ml oz brandy

grated rind and juice of 1 orange

1/2 pint/284ml milk (approximately)

This recipe makes enough mixture to generously fill four 1 pint (5ooml) pudding basins, each one of which will give about six servings; I usually use three 1 pint basins and one 1 1/2 pint (900ml). Grease whatever size of pudding basins you would like your finished Christmas puddings to be. 

Sift the flour and spices into a very large mixing bowl, stir in the sugar, breadcrumbs and suet, then add the dried fruit and grated orange rind.

Beat the eggs and add to them the barley wine/stout, brandy and orange juice.  Stir this into the dry ingredients and mix well, adding enough milk to give the mixture a soft dropping consistency if necessary. 

Put the mixture into your well greased pudding basins.  Cover each one with a doubled-up sheet of lightly greased greaseproof paper or baking parchment, making a pleat in the centre to allow for expansion whilst the pudding is steaming.  Hold the paper in place with string or an elastic band.  This year though, as you can see, I had a brainwave and thought it would be much easier to use baking parchment cake tin liners ~ I know, genius right 😄

  I use a pudding basin net to make life easier when lifting the basins in and out of the steamer, but if you haven't got one simply use string to make a handle.  Whatever you use, do be very careful when taking the puddings out of the steamer as they will be very hot!

Bring a pan of water to the boil and place the pudding, in a steamer, on top; turn the water down to a low simmer. The puddings will take 6-7 hours to steam, depending on the size of basin you use.  I steam the one pint puddings for 6 hours each, and the larger pudding for 7 hours.  I usually set my timer for one-hour-at-a-time so that I remember to watch the level of water in the pan, keeping it topped it up as necessary with boiling water from the kettle. 

This old saucepan belonged to my Grandma and I only ever use it for steaming puddings ~ each time I use it, though, I am reminded of her 😊 I've had the steamer forever; it's a tad battered these days as it was dropped on the quarry tiled kitchen floor of our old house a number of times over the years!

At the end of the steaming period, take the pudding from the steamer and remove the greaseproof paper. Leave it in the bowl, cover with a clean tea-towel and leave on one side to cool. 

When the pudding is totally cold, remove it from the basin and wrap in a fresh double sheet of greaseproof paper and then wrap tightly in cooking foil. Store the puddings in a cool, dry place.

I try to make my puddings towards the end of October/beginning of November and it's a family tradition to save one to have one at Easter.  They should keep well, with all that sugar and alcohol in them!  On occasion, though, I've been somewhat less organised and haven't made them until close-on Christmas Day ~ they still taste delicious 😋 

 When it's time to eat your yummy Christmas pud, you can either gently steam it for about 1 1/2 hours or reheat in the microwave.  I'm afraid I can't really tell you how long to heat the pudding in the microwave; it's very much a trial-and-error process as each machine seems to heat differently!  I just tend to heat ours on full in 3-4 minute bursts until it is good and hot all the way through.

 Serve your pudding with whatever your family likes best: rum or brandy butter/sauce, custard, cream, ice cream, etc.  My husband likes to have cream with his but I prefer a brandy sauce which I make very simply like custard ~ just substitute cornflour for the custard powder and add brandy to taste!

I really hope you enjoy this recipe.  You can tweak it as you wish on the proportions and varieties of dried fruit, just keep the total amount about the same.  You could have a little less fruit and add nuts.  You could also use rum instead of brandy ~ I use brandy as I'm not that keen on rum.  Make the recipe your own by using the fruit (and nuts, if you wish) that you and your family like to eat 😊