Christmas Pudding Ice Cream

I am embarrassed to even call this a recipe really, but if any of you still have a lump of Christmas Pud lurking in the fridge, then this is a great way to use it up.  You simply chop or crumble the pud and mix it with GOOD bought vanilla ice cream - allow it to soften a little.  Season with some cinnamon and rum or brandy to taste (not too much booze as this inhibits the freezing), pile it back into the ice cream box or little ramekins if you are feeling precious.  Return to the freezer and then serve in scoops or turn out onto a plate if you went down the ramekin route.  Delicious!  Of course, it helps if you have a really good Crimbo pud to start with - we make our own each year.  Perhaps I should finally blog the recipe on here later on?

Boiled Fruit Cake

I was too late to make a Chrsitmas Cake this year - don't know why, I suppose I just got fed up after the mammoth Christmas Pudding session.  Anyway, just knocked together this dead simple recipe from the 'Joy of Baking' site.  The spicy loaf is baking as we speak, and the flat smells wonderfully Christmassy.  I might even be moved to decorate the tree, a job usually left to a last-minute panic on Christmas Eve.  First, we must venture out to the patio where it is waiting, and knock the 8 inches of snow off it.  I will report back on the recipe when we eat it, later in the week, but so far, it's smelling good! Tasting note: we broke into this on Christmas Day, giving it nearly a week to mature.  It was soooo good, much better, in my opinion, than the traditional fruit cake made months in advance.  In may have helped that we returned from a snowy walk by the river Thames, which was freezing over in parts, it was that cold, so fruit cake and tea went down a treat! photo courtesy of Joyofbaking.com

Christmas Puddings [#180]

Well, this recipe was a wee bit of a gamble as I have used the same Delia recipe for well over 15 years, but actually, Nigel's isn't that dissimilar. The biggest change I made was to use creamed unsalted butter instead of suet (as I do with Delia's recipe as well). This is to ensure that the veggies in the family can eat it, and I don't use so-called 'vegetarian' suet, as it contains hydrogenated fat - not nice. Usually, with Delia, I mix the puddings up and leave them overnight. This time, following Nigel, I left all the dried fruits to soak overnight with a mixture of brandy, rum and ginger wine. This morning, they were plump and glistening and ready to be mixed into the spicy cake mix. I made 7 puddings in total this year, and most of them are entering their final hour of steaming as I write. They smell gorgeous. I shall report on the taste on Christmas Day! Now, I just have to make Nigel's cake.......

Tasting note- superb. The only word to use. I am sure that macerating the fruits overnight in copious quantities of alcohol really contributed to the marvellous, friable, moist texture. Fresh citrus flavours, and deep fruitiness abounded! Thanks, again, Nigel (with help from Delia!) for another fabulous recipe