FLOWER POT KITCHEN: THE FIRST STAGE OF MAKING THE CHRISTMAS PUDDING

7 Dec 2012

THE FIRST STAGE OF MAKING THE CHRISTMAS PUDDING

This is a gorgeous Christmas pudding, light in texture and full of Christmas flavour, overloaded with too much brandy, but it is Christmas!

(makes 10 small)
(or 1 large pudding)

Ingredients

225g currants
225g sultanas
175g raisins
50 mixed peel
1 orange zest and juice
3 tbsp milk
100ml brandy
150g self-raising flour
2 tsp mixed spice
1 tsp grated nutmeg
175g butter
150g fresh breadcrumbs
3 medium eggs beaten
150g muscovado sugar

Pre-heat the oven 180 degrees, place all the dried fruits, zest, orange juice, brandy and milk in a bowl and stir well. In another bowl sieve the flour, spices and a pinch of salt together, leave to one side for a mo while you melt the butter. Pour the melted butter over the dried fruit mix, stir in and then add the spiced flour mix and mix well, now add the breadcrumbs, eggs, muscovado sugar and mix in well again.

I like to make 10-12 small puddings so that my husband can have individual portions as he is cake monster lol, even more so at Christmas time! You can make one beautiful large pudding base pudding, I often do both, so the we have puddings for the Christmas period and a large pudding for the day on the table.

To cook, I grease and base line the moulds and divide the pudding mix almost to the top of each mould. I then cover with a folded piece of tin foil with a pleat to allow for expansion and place the small puddings in a roasting tin 3/4 filled with foil and the cover the whole tin with foil and steam for approx one hour until cooked. If you are making a large pudding, I place the pudding on a upturned side plate in a deep saucepan and fill 2/3 with water and with the lid on steam for approx 3 hours until cooked. To test if cooked I use the same cake method, insert a skewer and if the skewer comes out clean then the pudding is cooked, tip don't remove the foil top, just pierce through.

Leave to cool and then I like to re-wrap in fresh baking paper and give a good glug of brandy over each pudding, I keep the puddings in a air tight container and every week I like to add another glug of brandy and turn each pudding over.

This is the stage I am at now, I will keep topping up with brandy and turning the puddings so on the big day the are perfect.

On the day I re-heat in the steamer or microwave depending on how much time and cooking space I have! I love to heat more brandy in a pan and then to serve I take a ladel of the hot brandy and light the ladle and pour over the pudding so it is a proper flaming figgy pudding as that is what we all want on our family Christmas day. Perfect family time. Then my dad has to have tons of brandy cream and my husband loves brandy cream and butter and me and my mum have our pudding somewhere in the next week lol!

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LIFE MY PASSION

Welcome to my daily life of cooking, one winters day many years ago my family and I were all inspired by a back to back rainy day of River Cottage this got us to stop talking about and start actually doing, suddenly three weeks later eight vegetable beds were dug, greenhouse erected and our first vegetables were propagating, this was the start to raising and growing our own food, our fabulous son Oscar changed our path in life which lead us to sell our small thriving restaurant of 10 yrs and to start our new life (Terrifying!) a life of the self sufficient in touch with nature and seasons, taking a step back and looking forward to a slower change of pace and making the most of every moment.

My passion for cooking was stronger than ever and having time at home with Oscar I found I had a new direction and I was no longer striving for perfection, I was suddenly very passionate for the enjoyment of the other side of food, something I had not realised, being the Chef/Cook and every other duty of your own small restaurant made me see that I never actually took time to cook what I wanted!

So there I was muddy boots and hands digging deep in more than one sense and I found myself transported back in time to where everyone grew some of their own food, it is a wonderful world with a real sense of achievement and loss, Slugs Snails and Caterpillars! But thats another story! Childhood memories of summers when I lived with my grand parents reminded me of so much that I had learnt about the make do and mend generation that I had forgotten.

Now as a family we love our free wild food days where we gather what nature has provided, have gone from being mini mini garden urban small holders, who did raised pigs at home because we could not wait to find land and supporting ourselves from our garden to now owning a very small farm that allows us to grow more vegetables for the whole of our family and neighbours, raise our own gorgeous Gloucestershire Old Spot pigs, (Sausages!) and pets! Dorset Down sheep, chickens for eggs and pet goats! Suddenly having large quantities of produce started to wake up the Cook in me!

The Cook was awake that part of me that wants to cook for the masses and I found myself setting up Flowerpot Kitchen, a Farmers Market Stall, I wanted to use our honest raised meats and make old fashioned pork pies, rabbit pies and game pies from the local game keeper along with old fashioned techniques and the best hot water crust pastry. This in turn grew to a small cottage industry from home weekly supplying three farm shops and a deli along with also attending three farmers markets A few years later there came a time when my son Oscar's health changed and it was an easy decision to stop.

I still hold the occasional pop up 40 seater restaurant or gourmet lunch which we do for local charities for the love of sharing food and to remind that Cook in me why I love our go slower self sufficient life!

So here I am sitting amoung the vegetables watching the chickens loving that every season nature teaches me something new and that nature is in charge! She has taught me to just go with it and grow. Give it a try from a tray of salad on your windowsill to a few tomato plants it all counts.