Video:How to Make Christmas Pudding

Transcript:How to Make Christmas Pudding

Hi, I'm Elaine Lemm for About.com and today I'm going to show you areaway magical British Christmas dessert, a Christmas Pudding.

Notes About Christmas Pudding

For the Christmas Pudding I've actually started the night before by putting all the dried mixed fruits into a bowl with the chopped apple, the zest and the juice of the lemon and the orange, mixed them all together, added a little brandy, covered it with a cloth and left it overnight. Now for the rest of the pudding, into our baking bowl I'm going to put the self raising flour, the suet, breadcrumbs, cinnamon, and the mixed spice, the sugar and the almonds, and we just give that a mix. Into there we add the marinated dried fruits. When that's all mixed together we take the eggs and beat them together, and add those to the mixture.

Traditions With Christmas Pudding

Traditionally at this point in making your Christmas Pudding it's time to bring all the family together to stir the pudding. It's a tradition that goes back centuries, and while stirring the pudding you also make a wish and obviously hope that it comes true.

Steaming the Christmas Pudding

I have here a 1.4 litre pudding basin and I'll pop the mixture in there, it smells gorgeous! Once that's filed, press it down firmly and then cover the dish with two circles of greaseproof paper and one layer of aluminium foil and tie that with a piece of string. This now goes into a steamer over boiling water and is going to be steamed for 7 hours, so you might want to go back and check from time to time to make sure water's not boiled dry. So here's our Christmas Pudding, it's had 7 hours in the steamer, I've left it to go clod, and let's have a look to see how it is. Woah, perfect! That is a really delicious looking Christmas Pudding, it's all moist and sticky.

Finishing the Christmas Pudding

Unfortunately it's not quite ready to eat just yet, it needs a little bit more brandy, so just prick with a skewer and just a sprinkle of brandy. This now needs to be wrapped with some fresh greaseproof paper and a piece of foil. Put it away somewhere cool, preferably in an airtight tin, and save it until Christmas.