Saturday, September 28, 2013

Christmas Baking

This year I decided to get into the Christmas spirit early and bake some Christmas puddings, in order to let them mature for a few months before we eat them. I found a recipe from Maggie Beer, for a cumquat Christmas pudding. This is kinda funny, as I'm living in Vancouver, I have discovered that dumb ass North Americans have no idea what proper pudding is, nor do they seem interested in learning that their sloppy shit excuse for pudding is more like gelatinous custard. Anyways, this has made it difficult to find the required ingredients to make this pudding. Obviously they don't have cumquats here. So I ended up substituting for dried oranges. They also don't have good, affordable, dried citrus rind, WTF, so I ended up having to buy and dry my own oranges. This was actually quite fun, albeit a tad laborious. Next, good luck finding a good baking store here that sells Calico cloth....I ended up having to use cheese cloth. Anyways, that done, my Christmas pudding turned into a week long process, which is kinda cool as I think a Christmas pudding should have a lot of time, effort and love put into it! I mean you share it with all your close family and best friends on one of the most sharing days of the year.
The recipe made enough batter to serve 20 people. So I broke it up into one big pudding for 10 people, and then 4 smaller puddings so I can share them with Kate on special occasions or give out for Christmas gifts to close friends. The cooking process is amazing, steaming the puddings for a long time, before hanging them to mature for the next few months. The house just smells of delicious citrus, berries and spices while the puddings are boiling. I can't wait to eat them.
Thanks for reading. For the recipe check out Maggie Beer.
boiling pudding
pudding
the small puddings
Home dried oranges
Xmas Pudding Fruit Soaking
Xmas Pudding Batter

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