For anyone who wants to make a a traditional organic Christmas Pudding, this is your recipe. Christmas puddings make excellent presents for friends and family, and the amount of pudding this recipe makes will give you enough to make three decent sized ones. Every ingredient can be sourced as an organic ingredient including the brandy if you’re prepared to make a trip to an organic supermarket, or order online.

This recipe is taken from the 1861 version Mrs Beeton’s Household Management, and s packed to the brim with delicious nuts and dried fruit. Technically speaking it is called a plum pudding. It’s the recipe I will be using this year.

Plum Pudding Ingredients:

  • 1lb of suet, you can use frozen grated butter instead of suet. I use melted butter. If you’re looking for organic suet, you can order online from Graig Farm Organics in the UK, or GrassLandbeef.com in US. Community Foods in the UK are a great supplier for organic dried fruits.
  • 1lb raw cane sugar, you can substitute some of the sugar for molasses if you like.
  • 4lbs dried fruit, whichever dried fruits you like, plus hazelnuts and almonds for a delicious bite.
  • ½ lb plain flour.
  • ½ lb bread-crumbs.
  • 1 tsp mixed spice.
  • 8 eggs.
  • ¼ pint of brandy (order online for organic versions!).

Method:

  • Firstly macerate the fruit in the spirit for several hours or even overnight.
  • Mix the ingredients in the following order flour, spice, sugar, fruit, bread- crumbs, butter, eggs. Stir (Mrs Beeton suggests “for 25 minutes” and remember to make a wish!
  • Butter the basins, butter the papers, fill the moulds allowing space to rise. You will need a volume of 5¼ pints in total.
  • Make three ‘lids’ for each bowl out of the buttered paper tie each with string or twine.
  • Steam for between 6 to 13 hours depending on size. Remember to keep topping up the water.

Keep in a cool dry place and the pudding will be ready for this year’s celebrations. Alternatively, freeze for next year.

To make your own traditional organic pudding is a lovely thing to do for Christmas. This is a lovely recipe that uses lots of of nutritious, natural ingredients. The main expenditure here is time – but organic living often asks for a little time in return for large rewards.

Filed under: Organic Kitchen

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