Anyone have any recipes? Do you really have to boil it for five hours?
Any help would be appreciated.
Plenty of Internet sites on this. Here’s the first one that came up for me:
When I returned from the UK just before Christmas many years ago, I brought a Christmas Pudding with me. The customs guy was reluctant to let me take it out of the country, but finally relented, making me promise to learn how to make it myself. I still haven’t tried, I’m ashamed to admit.
You better make up some “figgy pudding” or else a bunch of random assholes may occupy your house and “Won’t go until they get some.”
Always struck me as odd…
For any traditional english recipe, I find Delia Smith is your friend.
It looks like it takes several days! I’ve chickened out and already bought my Heston from Waitrose pud.
I’ve only had store-bought, but they are yummy. One day I’ll make one from scratch.
OtisCampbell, that song is left over from when Christmas was primarily a holiday for drunken hoodlums, who went from house to house demanding booze and food on threat of vandalism. Kind of like Trick or Treat for grownups. It was called “wassailing”.
No, really.
Reminds me of a Doctor Who Christmas episode, Voyage of the Damned…
[quote=]
" I shall be taking you to Old London town in the country of UK, ruled over by Good King Wenceslas. Now human beings worship the great god Santa, a creature with fearsome claws and his wife Mary. And every Christmas Eve, the people of UK go to war with the country of Turkey. They then eat the Turkey people for Christmas dinner, like savages!" — Mr. Copper
[/quote]
My cousin makes this every year to bring over, along with the “hard sauce”. Douse with a bit of brandy and light it, and it makes for a dramatic desert.
Assuming I can’t find suet, what can I substitute?
If the answer is lard please let me know but also a non-porcine alternative too.
Vegetable oil solid shortening (Crisco-type stuff) will work, although it is less flavorful.
You can easily render suet, which is beef fat, from cheap-o (high fat content) hamburger meat.
Cook the ground beef in a skillet, breaking it up. Pour off and cool the fat – that’s the suet part. Use the meat in any recipe that calls for cooked ground beef – chili, sloppy joes, pot pies, etc.
Do folks really put coins in it – and then you have to be careful eating it?
Traditionally, yes, to both questions. Just one coin, though; whoever finds it will be brought good luck.
Two years ago I made figgy puddings using a carrot cake mix but substituting figs for carrots. They were figgy. My family wouldn’t eat them, but I put them in the break room at work and they were gone by lunchtime.
Not forgetting to wrap the coin in foil, so everyone doesn’t get poisoned.
My Dad always put enough coins in so all the children could get one. Cheating, obviously.
Hard sauce?? Do you mean brandy butter? (Which is just butter, icing sugar and brandy mixed together. Drool).
I did this one just this weekend. I substituted vegetable suet as I don’t eat meat. I’ve done this recipe a couple of years and it works well.
The steaming is a pain, but is worth it. The longer you steam it the first time, the darker and better the pudding seems to be. Apparently, leaving the pudding to cool in the same bowl helps too. On Christmas Day you do need to give it another couple of hours to warm it through.
Hugh F-W suggests using apple brandy in his brandy butter, I’m looking forward to trying that one!
This is my Christmas plum pudding recipe - it’s based on a very old traditional one that I adapted - it’s never let me down:
http://www.atomicshrimp.com/st/content/plum_pudding
When I make it now, I cover the bowl with baking parchment, then foil, then tie it around - so the foil can’t be corroded by the fruit acids in the pudding.
Oh, the other thing I do now is to* make next year’s pudding this year*.
That is, just before Advent, we make two - and each Christmas we (at some point - not necessarily both on Christmas day) eat one pudding that’s six weeks old, and one that’s over a year old.
To get the pudding to store for a year, I uncover it, prick the top surface, pour on about half an inch of brandy, then re-cover tightly and store in a cool place.
OK, that explains a lot! Certainly the kind of behavior not consistant with celebrating the birth of our Lord and Saviour!
Sorry for the delayed response and mild highjack OP. I had to round up and dispatch a bunch of wasaillers from my house. 
Got one in a dark corner of the basement now, waiting for Xmas eve. Based mostly on this recepie. Took some hunting to find suet around here. You wouldn’t think beef fat would be hard to find.