Grandma's Plum Pudding!

This recipe tastes just like a real old-fashioned Christmas pudding, with the advantage that it doesn’t need to be boiled in a cloth or made weeks in advance and hung up to age. Just mix it up early on Christmas morning (or the night before if you want to be really organised) put it into a pudding basin, and steam for a couple of hours (or until needed.) If you make sure that your saucepan doesn’t boil dry, it can cook for about 6 hours without suffering any real harm. If you have left-overs, it keeps in the fridge for about a week. It’s yummy hot or cold, and it can be heated in the microwave after it’s cooked. We usually prepare the pudding a couple of days before Christmas, then leave it in the fridge until Christmas morning. Then it gets cooked (sitting on a rack in our biggest saucepan with a couple of inches of water under it) until it’s time to go to the family gathering, where the puddings take their place on a portable electric hotplate outside until we need them. We usually make 4 quantities of this pudding to feed 15 hungry people, but you probably won’t want that much (or maybe you will – it’s yummy!)

THE RECIPE

Soak 2 large tablespoons sago overnight in a cup of milk.

In the morning add:

1 cup breadcrumbs
¼ cup flour
Pinch spice
Pinch cinnamon
Little nutmeg
Few drops lemon essence
Sugar to taste
 (¼-½ cup, depending on type of fruit used)
1 beaten egg  (not essential)

Then add:

1 cup of fruit
1 tablespoon melted butter
1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda dissolved in
a little milk or water

Steam for 3 to 4 hours.

Serve with hard sauce (butter, icing sugar and as much brandy as you can stomach, creamed together then chilled in the fridge). It’s also lovely with custard and/or icecream, and some members of our family (not me – I hate hard sauce) actually have all three at once – greedy gutses!