Recipes
Show Recipes:
Apple Pie Like Grandma Used to Make
Honey-Lemon Rhubarb Pie
Plum Pudding or Christmas Pudding
Tar Heel Pie
Plum Pudding or Christmas Pudding
By Rae Goforth and the Flavel House Museum, Astoria, OR
Description:
Plum pudding is an Old English pudding that has been made as far back as the Middle Ages. It is a pudding in the English sense being that it is solid and more like a dense rich cake. Traditional recipes call for suet and lard but those are not ingredients that are readily available or desirable for many of us to cook with now days. I found this recipe from the Flavel House Museum in Astoria, OR and it is delicious and substitutes ingredients that are easier for modern day bakers. Enjoy this warm with a cup of tea, a dab of whipped cream, or a lemon sauce. Traditional puddings have a coin baked into them and the person who finds it has good luck through out the New Year.
Ingredients:
1/2 cup margarine, butter, or butter flavored Crisco
1 cup sugar
1 egg
1 cup flour
1 cup white bread crumbs (for best consistency and flavor buy cheap white bread, dry slices in the oven at 200 degrees, and grind in the blender)
1 teaspoon soda
1/2 teaspoon cloves
1 teaspoon nutmeg
1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon
1 cup of walnuts (don't chop, break with fingers- bigger pieces look nicer when sliced in pudding)
1 1/2 cups of currants (some people use raisins but I think the currants give a much nicer flavor. I sometimes substitute 1/2 cup of dried cranberries for 1/2 cup of the currants)
3/4 cup of warm water.
Directions:
You will need a special pot called a kettle that has a snap-down lid to bake this desert. It's worth purchasing one if you like to bake you'll find it useful.

Cream together in mixer:
1/2 cup margarine, 1 cup sugar, and 1 egg

In a separate bowl, mix all the dry ingredients, breaking up clumps with your fingers.

Add half of the warm water to the creamed mixture and start adding the dry ingredients, alternating until all are mixed. Do not over beat.

Grease the kettle well (except for the lid) add the batter, and seal the lid.

Cook for 3 hours at 250 degrees Fahrenheit.
When you take the pudding out of the oven, loosen the lid (take off the cover briefly, then snap back on). Let it stand for 10 minutes. When you turn the pan upside down, the pudding should fall out.

You can either enjoy the pudding while it's still warm or cool it for an hour then wrap it in plastic wrap and then aluminum foil and freeze. Freezing actually improves the flavor and it can be removed from the freezer, thawed, and microwaved a piece at a time or sliced, covered with foil and heated in the oven at 300 degrees for 20-30 minutes.
Prep Time: 30 minutes Cook Time: 180 minutes
Category: Desserts Servings: 10
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