Ingoldsby Christmas Pudding is a traditional British recipe, based on Eliza Acton's recipe of 1845, for a classic fruited (plum) boiled Christmas pudding made from a bread, flour sugar, suet and egg base with raisins, currants, candied peel, nutmeg, mixed spice and brandy as flavourings. The full recipe is presented here and I hope you enjoy this classic British version of: Ingoldsby Christmas Pudding.
(click this button to prevent the screen from sleeping so Cook Mode is 'ON')
Plum puddings of this type had been prepared and cooked for centuries. However, Eliza Acton was the first author to make the plum pudding as 'Christmas Pudding'. This is one of two recipes in her book Modern Cookery for a Christmas pudding.
This is a traditional British recipe redacted from Eliza Acton's 1845 volume Modern Cookery, the first classic Victorian cookbook.
Original Recipe
INGOLDSBY CHRISTMAS PUDDING.
Mix very thoroughly one pound of finely-grated bread with the same quantity of flour, two pounds of raisins stoned, two of currants, two of suet minced small, one of sugar, half a pound of candied peel, one nutmeg, half an ounce of mixed spice, and the grated rinds of two lemons; mix the whole with sixteen eggs well beaten and strained, and add four glasses of brandy. These proportions will make three puddings of good size, each of which should be boiled six hours.
Obs..—A fourth part of the ingredients given above, will make a pudding of sufficient size for a small party : to render this very rich, half the flour and bread-crumbs may be omitted and a few spoonsful of apricot marmalade well blended with the remainder of the mixture.
Combine the bread and flour in a bowl then add the raisins, currants, suet, sugar, candied peel, nutmeg, mixed spice and lemon zest. Beat thoroughly to combine then add the beaten eggs and brandy. Mix well until all the dry ingredients are moistened.
Take two pudding cloths and fold each one in two. Flour then liberally then turn the divide the pudding mixture between their centres. Take the ends of the cloth and bring them together, so that the puddings sit rather like a cannon-ball in the centre of each cloth. Tie the loose ends of the cloth securely together with string (leave plenty of string overhanging).
Bring a very large pan of water to a boil. Lower the puddings into this then tie them to the handle of the pan so that it does not sit on the base of the pan (otherwise it may burn). Add a lid, and continue to boil the pudding for 4 1/2 hours (top up the water as needed with boiling water, and ensure the pudding does not boil dry).
When cooked, remove the pudding from the pan and allow to drain and dry in the kitchen then hang up in your larder or in a cool place until Christmas day.
To serve, you will need to boil the pudding for a further 3 hours (exactly as described above) before unwrapping and serving (garnish with a sprig of holly and set alight with brandy if you wish — heat the brandy in a ladle, then set alight and pour over the pudding).
