It's all in the game: Stir Up Sunday 2010 (Making Christmas Puds)

I had a look to see what dried fruits I had, having a weigh in with my eyes, I said yep that's enough, I had the SR flour, I had the suet, I had the booze, spices tons of the stuff, oranges and lemons, more than St Clements, all that was missing was a couple of apples, a bottle of Guinness and off we could jolly well go!

I had a look at Nigel Slater's recipe (I had made this one last year, turned out great), I then looked up Keith Floyd's, now if it was good enough for his mum well should one argue? last not least it was the good old M&S, this one had stood me in good stead for many years prior to Nigel coming onto the scene.

In the end I thought, does it really matter? they are all just a variation on a theme, the original boil in a bag boudin, so I went back to basics, just throw in all that was left in the store cupboard.

Ingredients

1.5kg of dried fruit (dates, apricots,cherries, raisins, sultanas, currents, figs (it is after all figgy pudding) and cranberries
200g beef suet
150g of SR flour
About 350g of fresh white bread crumbs (about is because I bought a 500 g loaf and took out the soft white inner crumb
250g of soft brown sugar (well I am a diabetic so this was the sugar reduction- ahem)
150g of nibbed almonds
100g of candied lemon peel
100g of candied orange peel
1 large boskop apple peeled, cored and diced
2 heaped teaspoons of mixed spices
1/2 teaspoon of ground ginger
Zest and juice of 1 orange
Zest and Juice of 1/2 a lemon
3 BIG eggs beaten
A good (very good) measure of Rum
330ml of Guinness

Method.

Mixed all of the dried fruit, candied peel, flour, sugar, suet, almonds, spices well together, then finely chopped the zests and added that to the beaten eggs, then I added the rum and the juices of the fruit, Slowly adding and mixing until all was a nice thick heavy homogeneous mass, Now in went the Guinness, I hadn't a clue how much should have went in, but taking KFs tip I added it until it gave a soft dropping consistency, guess what? it was the whole 330ml bottle. Keith did like a drink! Cheers mate!

This was set aside, covered overnight, Next morning Linda and I set about filling the basins, I cut out discs of baking paper, buttered them, Linda buttered the basin and molds.

Was quite a production line, Linda filling, disc on and then a aluminium foil cover, tied around the rim with kitchen string.

I have a 50 litre boiling pan that I used in times gone by for stews, curries and soups for the various sporting events in clubs that I am attached to. This took all ten of the dariol molds, I placed a metal tivot on the bottom and then filled the pan with water until it came halfway up the molds, switched it on full lid on and that was that.