Christmas Pudding

Author: Maureen

Recipe type: Cake

Cuisine: Cake

Ingredients

500 g mixed fruit
125 g dates
125 g raisins
1 cup water
½ cup white sugar
½ cup brown sugar, lightly packed
½ teaspoon salt
125 g butter
1 teaspoons bicarbonate of soda
2 eggs
1 cup plain flour
1 cup self raising flour
1 teaspoon mixed spice
½ teaspoon cinnamon
¼ cup rum

Instructions

Put in pan, the fruit, roughly chopped dates, roughly chopped raisins, water, sugar, salt and butter. Stir over low heat until butter has melted, bring to boil, reduce heat, simmer uncovered for 8 minutes, stirring occasionally. Remove from heat, add soda, mix well. Allow mixture to become completely cold. Beat eggs and rum until combined. Add egg mixture, sifted flours, mixed spice and cinnamon to fruit mixture. Mix well.
To boil: Use a 75 cm square of unbleached calico. Drop it into a large pan of boiling water. Boil for 30 minutes. Remove from water, wring out well (protect hands from hot cloth with rubber gloves). Spread out cloth and cover with plain flour, about ½ a cup. Bring flour to within 20cm of edges of cloth. The cloth can be left unfloored, but flouring gives a better skin. Put mixture into centre of the cloth. It should be round in shape, moulded into a slight peak at the top.
Gather corners and sides of the cloth around the pudding mixture as evenly as possible. Pull corners tightly and firmly to give pudding a good round shape. Make sure that all edges of the pudding cloth are pulled up in hands, so that no water can get into the pudding during boiling.
Tie firmly with string about 2.5cm above top of pudding mixture. This allows room for expansion during cooking. Twist string around cloth about 10 times to give a good, firm seal. Make a handle from string ends to lift out.
Boil for 3 ½ hours. If you want to serve hot later, leave pudding in the calico for reheating. If you want to serve cold, drain and remove calico.

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