I have been entrusted with great Grandma Edna’s Christmas pudding recipe.  One night at my parents house my mother pulled a carefully folded piece of yellowed paper out of a zip lock bag were it had been kept safe for years.  Spidery writing in slightly faded blue ink coated a little piece of fine writing paper front and back handing down the family recipe.  Such a special little piece of family history, linking my brother and sister and I first generation Australians back to our family roots in the motherland, England.

Not trusting myself to become guardian of the letter I whipped out the i-phone and quickly scanned it to be stored in the great cloud in the sky forever more.  I settled on last weekend to make the Christmas pud, that gives 4 weeks between making and re-steaming for Christmas lunch with my family.  Enough time to soak some more booze into it over a few weekends.

Great Grandma Edna’s Christmas Pudding

• 1 grated carrot
• 4oz raisins
• 4oz sultanas
• 4oz Demerara sugar
• 4oz breadcrumbs
• 2oz currants
• 2oz candied peel
• 4oz suet (grated)
• 4oz dates
• 1/4 teaspoon of ground ginger
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon mixed spice
• 1/4 teaspoon of cinnamon
• 4oz SR flour
• 1 egg
• 2 teaspoons egg powder
• 1/2 cup of milk
• small glass of stout or brandy or sherry

Mix everything together and leave overnight, then steam for 6 hours.

Granny note more fruit can be added if you like also a little more flour, use your discretion.

The first problem was the egg powder…… I didn’t know what egg powder was, I assumed that it was dried eggs but turned to google for confirmation.  Goggle tells me that I am correct and they were used in rationing during WW2……. makes sense.  So an extra egg won’t hurt, I just reduced the milk slightly.

The next problem when I really looked at the recipe was suet, I thought I would be able to buy it in Coles, you can buy anything in Coles…… except Suet and incidentally Rye flour for some reason on Sunday.  You also can’t get it Woolies or IGA or the local gourmet deli, because it was Sunday my trusty butcher was closed, how dare he have a day off when I need a bizarre piece of dead animal.  I thought surely I could use some other fat but why would there be so much of it in a Christmas pud?  I researched other Chrissy pud recipes and Nigella uses it in hers so does Jamie…… but I couldn’t figure out if butter or lard or duck fat would work as well or not.

Finally after much peering at my phone I found the answer, the suet melts at a much higher temperature then any other fat so if it is grated and mixed through as the pudding rises and sets slightly then the suet melts and leaves behind little air pockets making a light pudding rather then a fatty greasy heavy one like that much butter would.  I really wanted to make my pudding so I decided the next best alternative would be to use lard, just slightly less of it.  So I put some lard in the freezer so it was hard enough to grate.

I hate peel so I switched that out for cranberries 🙂 and I used a beautiful aged Muscat instead of sherry.  Other then that the recipe was the same…. well it is in the spirit of Gran she said to use my discretion.

So the result after 6 hours in the steamer…………………. Oh wow, looks  like a Christmas pud, smells like a Christmas pud and the lard worked its light and almost fluffy not greasy at all.  I’ll have to try another one with suet just to see if it can be any better.

Thank you Great Grannie Edna, it is nice to be able to share a part of our family history.