Christmas wouldn't be Christmas without a proper Christmas pudding, brought flaming to the table to everyone's delight and alarm.
Our proper, old-school Christmas pudding is Sophie's mum's recipe - a slightly lighter than usual pudding. It's still dark and (creepy word warning here) moist but without the donk-you-over-the-head booziness of some. We soak the dried fruit in Aussie liqueur muscat (aka Christmas pudding in a bottle).
The other departure from tradition is that our puddings don't contain dried peel - there are enough peel-haters in our families to make its inclusion too contentious on what should be a day of peace and harmony. But in every other respect, this is a good, old-fashioned pudding, full of dried fruit, cinnamon and cloves, bound with breadcrumbs, brown sugar and butter. We slowly steam them for 5 hours, then let them mature in the cool room.
Anyway, enough about the pudding. We're here to show you how to light it!
Lighting a Christmas pudding might seem like an insane thing to do at an Australian Christmas, but hey why not, it’s just a bit of fun. Just don’t do it on a total fire ban day.
First you need to heat your pudding up – place the pudding in its basin, lid on, into a saucepan of hot water over low heat and leave to simmer gently for two hours - it's pretty forgiving if it needs to sit around for longer.
If you can’t face steaming it – you can do it in the microwave. That’s completely fine, too.
Once you’ve got your hot pudding, get your hot brandy (you can heat it in the microwave) and pour it over the top of the pudding.
Light with a match – and voila!
Our traditional Christmas pudding is on our Christmas menu now. Place your Christmas order by 14 December 2020 for delivery between 22 and 24 December 2020.