Classic Christmas Pudding

Christmas is such a joyous time, a time to reflect and be grateful. For me it starts on “Stir it Up Sunday”, when I make the Christmas Pudding. Traditionally this particularly Sunday (5 weeks before Christmas) is a time to gather friends and family and make Christmas Pudding or Christmas Cake. Each person stirs the mixture and makes a wish. I remember this well from my childhood with my mother - the Queen of Baking, and I take the opportunity to make her Christmas Pudding, put on Christmas music and dance around the kitchen thinking of her. Right, enough of the soppiness, let’s get on to the recipe.

Christmas Cake is a rich dense fruit cake, the longer you steam it the better, so get started early in the day to give it at least 6 hours to cook. It uses Suet rather than butter, largely because suet melts at a higher temperature and allows the pudding to set before melting. The risk with butter is that it melts first and the pudding doesn’t get as solid - it certainly doesn’t take away from the taste though, it just makes it less dense, so feel free to use it if you can’t find Suet.

It’s important to make it a few weeks early to give the flavours time to get together and have a party, the result is fragrant, rich, dense lushness. The exception to this is… you may choose to substitute orange juice for the brandy to make a non-alcoholic version, in which case it doesn’t keep as well and should be made a couple of weeks before and stored in the fridge - still tasty nevertheless.

Enjoy and

Happy Cooking

gill

My Mum’s Christmas Pudding

• 500 grams mixed fruit (currants, sultanas and raisins)

• 2 tablespoons candied peel

• 1 small apple, cored, peeled, and finely chopped

• juice and zest of 1 orange

• juice and zest of 1 lemon

• 1/4 cup brandy (or orange juice for non-alcoholic)

• 60 grams flour

• 1/4 teaspoon baking powder

• 1/4 teaspoon salt

• 2 teaspoons ground mixed spice

• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

• 120 grams suet

• 120 grams brown sugar

• 120 grams fresh breadcrumbs

• 2 tablespoons ground almonds

• 2 large eggs, lightly beatenzest

Method

1. Grease a 1 litre pudding bowl.

2. Mix dried fruit, peel, lemon and orange zest and juice, apple and brandy together in a bowl, cover and refrigerate overnight.

3. Sift flour, baking powder, salt, mixed spice and cinnamon together.

4. Add suet, brown sugar, breadcrumbs, and ground almonds and mix well.

5. Add mixed fruit mixture and eggs and stir it well. This is where the family if they’re inclined stir the ingredients and make a wish (worth a try right).

6. Put the mixture into the greased pudding bowl and cover with baking parchment. Pop the lid on the bowl if you have one. If not, cover the top with two layers of tinfoil and wrap with string, creating a handle at the top of the bowl with the string to make it easy to lift in and out of the pot.

7. Place on a metal trivet in a large pot and full the pot to half way up the side of the pudding. Pop the lid on the pot. Bring to a gentle simmer and steam for 6 to 8 hours. Keep topping up the water in the pot if needed so that it doesn’t boil dry.

8. Remove the pudding from the pot, open the lid, take a moment to breathe in all those lovely flavours. Poke a few holes in the pudding and sprinkle with 2 tablespoons of brandy and cool.

9. Remove the pudding from the bowl, wrap in fresh parchment paper and store until Christmas Day. To reheat, simply pop it back in the bowl, cover with baking parchment and steam for an hour.

Vanilla Macarons with Caramel Filling

I love macarons, but I don’t make them often, and to be honest, you can buy them right? But they aren’t the same as making your own. They do take time and they are fiddly, but if you have an afternoon spare, and want to try a macaron that is just the right combination of smooth crispy exterior with a beautifully airy chewy nutty interior, combined with a rich caramel filling - then try these. They are delicious, and well worth the effort.

Now there a few tips I should mention when making macarons:

• This recipe calls for 4 egg whites, the first two you use to make an Italian meringue, the second two are added to the ground almonds.

• Macarons are all about the air - be gentle with them.

• Be careful with the hot syrup and caramel, they will burn.

• When I pipe the circles onto baking paper, I create a template first and put that under the baking paper. I then pull it out from underneath the piped macarons and use it for the next tray - you will need 2 or even 3 trays depending on the size of your macarons.

• Letting the shells rest for an hour before baking let’s a skin form on top of the shells, this forms the traditional smooth crust - you can tell if they are ready to go in the oven when you touch the shell and you can feel the skin on top.

• Filled Macarons should be eaten within 24 hours or popped into the fridge for up to 3 days. I find a day in the fridge makes them taste better. They can be frozen unfilled for up to 3 months.

Happy Cooking

gill

Vanilla Macarons with Salted Caramel Filling

Ingredients

Makes about 30 filled macarons, depending on size.

For the macaron shells:

• 150g sugar

• ¼ cup water

• ¼ cup egg whites, about 2 large egg whites

• 150g ground almonds

• 150g powdered sugar

• 2 teaspoons vanilla essence

• ¼ cup egg whites, about 2 large egg whites

For the salted caramel filling:

• 175g sugar

• ¼ cup water

• ½ cup heavy whipping cream

• 175g unsalted butter, cubed

Method

Make the macaron shells:

1. Bring the water and sugar to a boil over medium heat, stirring until sugar has dissolved then let the syrup simmer until a candy thermometer reaches 116°C (240°F).

2. In the meantime add the egg whites to a medium-sized, heatproof bowl and mix (with a mixer fitted with the whisk attachment) until foamy and the whites are almost able to hold soft peaks.

3. Slowly drizzle the hot syrup into the bowl with the foamy egg whites, mixing continuously to prevent the eggs from scrambling.

4. Once all the syrup has been added, keep mixing until the bottom of the bowl feels cool to the touch and the meringue has cooled down to body temperature. Add food colouring here if you want to.

5. Mix almonds, powdered sugar, vanilla essence and extra egg whites together to form a paste.

6. Mix 1/3 of the egg white mixture into the paste. Gently fold the other two thirds of the egg whites into the almond mixture.

7. Pipe in 4cm circles (they will spread to about 5cm) onto baking paper and let sit for 1 hour at room temperature to let a crust form on the top.

8. Bake for 20 minutes or until a shell pulls away from the baking paper easily.

Make the filling:

1. Heat the sugar and water over a low heat stirring until the sugar has dissolved. Turn the heat to medium/high and cook until the caramel reaches a light golden colour. While the caramel is cooking, heat the cream to almost boiling pot in a separate pot.

2. Remove the caramel from heat and add the cream carefully and whisk. It will splatter but just keep whisking until it calms down.

3. Add the butter a cube at a time whisking until incorporated. Cool the mixture and then beat with an electric mixture until it has doubled in volume.

Assemble the macarons:

Pair the macarons according to size. Fill with a teaspoon of the caramel filling and enjoy.

Crusty Bread Rolls

I love baking! Bread especially. There’s something so satisfying about starting with simple ingredients like flour and yeast, mixing, kneading, and resting and ending up with spectacularly crusty on the outside and soft in the middle bread rolls. Baking bread takes time, not so much in the mixing, but in the kneading and resting, but is worth it, so set aside a lazy hazy weekend morning, enjoy the smells wafting from the oven as the bread bakes and the satisfaction of slapping a big dollop butter onto fresh, hot, straight out of the oven bread rolls.

Happy Cooking

Gill

Crusty Bread Rolls

• 1 cup warm water

• 1 tablespoon yeast

• 2 teaspoons sugar

• 1 teaspoon salt

• 2 tablespoons olive oil

• 3 cups flour

• egg white wash - whisk one egg white with 2 tablespoons water

Method

1. Mix the warm water with the sugar and yeast, leave to rest for 10 minutes to froth

2. Add oil, salt and flour. Mix well, and then either turn out onto a floured surface and knead until smooth (about 8 minutes) or pop into a mixer bowl with a dough hook and knead for 5 minutes.

3. Brush a large bowl with oil and place dough inside, cover and allow to rise until doubled in size, about an hour.

4. Deflate the dough and turn out onto a surface. This is where you get to decide the bread rolls are. I made mini rolls - so weighed the mixture out in 30 gram lots. Normal rolls are about 50 grams. This made 30 rolls. Roll the balls and my trick is to cup your hand over the dough ball and roll the ball against the counter, this results in a lovely smooth round ball.

5. Place on baking trays a few centimetres apart, cover with a damp clean cloth and let rise for 30 minutes.

6. Turn the oven on to 190 degrees celsius or 375 degrees Fahrenheit.

7. Brush the eggwhite wash over the buns, and make two slashes in each bun. Slashes only need to be a few mm deep.

8. Bake for 15 to 20 minutes, until nice and golden brown and they sound hollow when tapped on the bottom.

Lemon Curd

Home made lemon curd is easier than you think to make, and tastes soooo much better than store bought. The crucial part to making a successful lemon curd is to heat everything SLOWLY, like really really SLOWLY, otherwise you may end up with lemony scrambled eggs – ick!

Once cooked the curd will last for a week or two in the fridge, and has so many uses – pie filling, cookies, steamed puddings, or just slather it on a thick slice of warm bread and enjoy.

Happy Cooking, 

Gill

Home made Lemon Curd

• 50 grams butter, chopped into small cubes

• 4 egg yolks

• 1/4 cup lemon juice (about 2 to 3 large lemons)

• 1/3 cup sugar

• 2 teaspoons grated lemon zest

Method

1. Put all of the ingredients into a double boiler or a bowl that is sitting on top of a pot with 1 inch of water in it. Make sure the bowl isn’t touching the water.

2. Slowly bring the water to a simmer, whisking the mixture the whole time

3. Cook until the mixture is thick and resembles a custard in texture.

4. Remove from heat and store in a jar or container. Can be used immediately or up to 2 weeks if stored in the fridge.

Watch this space...

My last post was in 2015 – Wow! That was a long time navel gazing and deciding if and where I wanted to take this. I’m back with a new look, and more of my absolute favourite recipes - the ones that tick the box for me. There are many that don’t make it past a first cut, but the ones on here are ones that I will (and do) make again and again. I will as always give you loads of alternatives in the recipes, different ingredients to use, and different ways to prepare the recipes to make them easier, faster, healthier (sometimes) and make one meal feel like many more.

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