Christmas colchester pudding | Fruit recipes | Jamie Oliver (2024)

FAQs

What kind of pudding did they eat in A Christmas Carol? ›

Often associated with the original traditions of Christmas, it is most notably referred to in the Christmas carol "We Wish You a Merry Christmas" in the lines "Now bring us some figgy pudding," "We all love our figgy pudding," and "We won't go until we get some!" Figgy pudding is not plum pudding, although it can be ...

It has its origins in medieval England, with early recipes making use of dried fruit, suet, breadcrumbs, flour, eggs and spice, along with liquid such as milk or fortified wine.

Most Christmas Pudding recipes will require starting a few weeks before Christmas, usually between four and six weeks ahead of the actual day. Christmas puddings and fruit cakes benefit from being made way in advance because it allows the flavours to intensify and the colour deepen over time.

You can't get through the Christmas season without hearing about it, but have you ever stopped wondering what figgy pudding is? In Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol, you read that Mrs. Cratchit proudly presented to her guests her Christmas pudding, resembling a speckled cannonball.

" 'Figgy' — certainly at some time figs would have been incorporated into Christmas pudding recipes, but today, not traditionally." It's also a pudding in the British sense, meaning dessert — not the creamy, custardy dish most Americans associate with the word. It's a steamed cake full of raisins, currants and brandy.

Christmas Pudding (also known as plum pudding or figgy pudding) is a dish as famous as it is misunderstood.

This pudding terminology is common in North America and some European countries such as the Netherlands, whilst in Britain, egg-thickened puddings are considered custards and starch-thickened puddings called blancmange. Table cream is a dessert, similar to blancmange.

For a long time it's been common practice to include silver Christmas pudding coins, charms or tokens into Christmas pudding. Finding a Christmas coin in your slice of pudding is believed to bring good luck and especially wealth in the coming year.

Why do you stir Christmas pudding clockwise? Stirring East to West is supposed to signify the way the Three Wise Men travelled to meet Jesus.

The pudding should be stored in a cool, dark and dry place. If the pudding is in a warm and humid environment (such as a steamy kitchen) then there is a risk that some mould will develop on the pudding. If you live in a warm or humid climate then it may be better to store the pudding in the fridge or to freeze it.

Does the alcohol cook out of Christmas pudding? ›

Conclusion: Christmas puddings contain ethanol that does not all evaporate during the cooking process. However, the rise in BAC after ingestion of a typical slice of Christmas pudding was negligible and unlikely to affect work performance or safety or impair a health care worker's ability to make complex decisions.

A silver sixpence was placed into the pudding mix and every member of the household gave the mix a stir. Whoever found the sixpence in their own piece of the pudding on Christmas Day would see it as a sign that they would enjoy wealth and good luck in the year to come.

How do I flame the Christmas pudding? Turn out the steamed pudding onto a serving plate with a good-sized rim around the edge to catch any spirit. The important thing is to get the spirit really hot. Pour 2-3 tablespoons of brandy, rum or whisky into a long-handled metal ladle and heat it over a gas flame until hot.

If it gets hotter than 89 °C, the sugars within the fruits in the pudding start to caramelise. So no matter how luxurious its ingredients are, your precious pud will taste bitter. The best tool for checking your Christmas pudding is perfectly cooked is an instant-read food thermometer like the Thermapen ONE.

Christmas pudding is also called figgy pudding and plum pudding. It's not made with plums, however. It's made with raisins, which were called plums in the Victorian era. Most recipes suggest soaking the raisins in brandy overnight, which I did.

Carolers sing “now bring us some figgy pudding!” In “We Wish You a Merry Christmas,” and the dish is a centerpiece in Charles Dickens' “A Christmas Carol,” when Mrs. Cratchit serves the steamed pudding set ablaze with brandy and garnished with holly.

The Cratchits' Christmas dinner of stuffed goose, potatoes, and pudding, of course, is never really prepared or eaten: the whole passage, as we later learn, describes a vision granted to Scrooge of what WOULD have happened that Christmas if Scrooge had not changed his ways.

With respect to the different names, the short answer is that figgy pudding can be considered a much earlier precursor of plum pudding and they've both come to be referred to as Christmas pudding. Figgy pudding dates back to the 14th century and was a much different dish than what we refer to as figgy pudding today.