recipe for the Christmas pudding

This time last year I posted a note about the Christmas Pudding, with pictures. Today I have made the pudding, and written out the recipe.

Traditional Christmas Pudding in a cloth
Notes:

• The pudding can be made a week or a month ahead, and hung up to dry – whenever it suits.
• The pudding cloth is a piece of plain cotton fabric such as unbleached calico. The size is about 60cm square. You will also need a piece of clean string to tie the cloth and hang it up.
• This recipe is adapted from the one on the suet mix box. You can substitute butter for the suet, but it’s still saturated fat. The suet seems to make the pudding set in the right way, particularly when it is eaten cold on Boxing Day or thereafter.
• The mixed dried fruits can be whatever you like. I make it with the traditional dried fruits (sultanas, currants, raisins, cherries) and the chopped fruit medley (apples, apricots, pears, ...). I do not add fruit peel as my children used to say they didn’t like it, but fruit peel is in most of the traditional recipes, and gives it a citrusy flavour.
• Before you start mixing the ingredients, put a large pot half filled with water on the stove and bring to the boil. Into that water place your pudding cloth.
• Take the cloth out of the water with tongs, wring it out when it’s cool enough to touch, then spread it on the bench. Spread plain flour (about ½ cup) liberally in the centre, making a circle of flour on which you place the mixture. This helps it to form a skin, and not to stick on the cloth.

Ingredients:

250g suet mix
½ cup plain flour
½ tsp salt
2 ½ tsp mixed spice
4 cups mixed dried fruits
1/3 cup mixed peel
½ cup chopped almonds
1 ½ cup brown sugar
2 cups fresh breadcrumbs
4 eggs, lightly beaten
¼ c brandy (I use dry ginger ale or juice)
½ tsp bicarbonate of soda
¼ cup boiling water

Method:

1. Combine dry ingredients, except bicarb soda, in a large bowl. I use a knife for this.
2. Add eggs and brandy/ginger ale/juice and mix
3. Add bicarb soda dissolved in boiling water. Mix thoroughly to combine well.
4. Scrape the mixture out onto prepared pudding cloth.
5. Gather up the 4 corners of the cloth into one hand, then gather the in-between folded parts. Bring the cloth together in your hand so that the mixture won’t escape. As you tie the cloth, make sure that you leave space above the mixture for it to expand.
6. With the water in the pot boiling strongly, lower the pudding into the pot. Cover with the lid. As soon as the water returns to the boil, reduce the heat to low. Do not lift the lid. Simmer for 5 hours.
7. Hang up from a hook to dry, in an airy place.
8. Return to the pot and simmer for 1 hour before cutting the string and turning out onto a serving platter. Serve with custard or cream.

Bon appetit!

family update

Christmas greetings

With our loving greetings this Christmas,
and with a prayer for God’s blessing on you
in the coming year.


Joy and Noel

[Photo: This year we revisited the Windsor Presbyterian Church, Queensland, where we were married in 1973.]


The God of eternity
entered our time and space.
Put aside infinity
to join a frail race.
Glorious mystery:
babe in a lowly place,
at mother’s breast
content.
Joy Johnston 2009

the pudding

The Christmas pudding in a cloth is something I have made each year. I remember my Grandmother having puddings hanging up in the pantry in the old house at Redland Bay. The puddings had threepences and sixpences in them back then.

People have asked me if I'm afraid the pudding will go bad. I haven't had them go bad, even though I usually make them weeks in advance. Some people say alcohol preserves a pudding, but as a tea totaller I substitute juice for brandy or whatever the recipe says. My grandma would not have had alcohol in the house either.

The fruit can be any dried fruit. This year I have used sultanas, currants, raisins, dates and dried cranberries. Sometimes I use dried apples, figs, apricots &c. Traditionally lard is used as the shortening, but I have also made puddings with butter.

To prepare the cloth put it in a pot of boiling water. Then lift it out with two pairs of tongs and wring the excess water out. Place the cloth on the bench, and put plenty of plain flour on it (to give the pudding a crust). Then spoon the mixture out.

The picture shows the texture of the mixture when I put it out on the cloth. Tie the cloth, leaving space above the mixture so that it doesn't burst out. Leave some length on the string so that it can be looped onto a hook. Have the pot of water boiling strongly when you put the pudding in. Then put the lid on and put a message on it "Do not lift the lid" until it's finished its cooking. You need enough water to last the time, and the heat to be sufficient to keep it boiling but not too hot.

I hang the pudding up in the window, with air flowing freely around it. It dries out quickly. On Christmas day the pudding goes back into the pot of boiling water and needs to boil for a couple of hours. Then you cut the string and take the cloth off, putting the pudding upside down on a plate. Custard and icecream are very nice accompaniments. Even on a hot summer day we enjoy Christmas pudding. Leftovers are good cold.

living in the shelter of the Most High

My meditation today, this Lord's Day morning, is from Psalm 91.

"Those who live in the shelter of the Most High
will find rest in the shadow of the Almighty.
This I declare of the Lord:
He alone is my refuge; my place of safety;
he is my God, and I am trusting him.
For he will rescue you from every trap
and protect you from the fatal plague.
He will shield you with his wings.
He will shelter you with his feathers.
His faithful promises are your armor and protection.
Do not be afraid of the terrors of the night,
nor fear the dangers of the day'
nor dread the plague that stalks in darkness,
nor the disaster that strikes at midday. ...
If you make teh Lord your refuge,
if you make the Most High your shelter,
no evil will conquer you,
no plague will come near your dwelling.
For he orders his angels to protect you wherever you go.
They will hold you with their hands
to keep you from striking your foot on a stone. ...
The Lord says, "I will rescue those who love me.
I will protect those who trust in my name.
When they call on me I will answer,
I will be with them in trouble.
I will rescue them and honor them.
I will satisfy them with a long life
and give them my salvation."



I claim this divine protection, and each of these promises today. The Most High is our God, our refuge and strength, in this time of trouble.

The dreadful plague that stalked the psalmist may be different from the plagues that confront us today - cancers, auto-immune diseases, infections - yet the experience of terror is the same. The need for a place of safety, and for rescue is as real today as it would have been to the writer of this Psalm.

The picture evoked by this Psalm is one of a present experience. Look at the verbs, and the statements attached to them:
living - in the shelter of the most high
finding - rest
trusting

the promises, that the Almighty will:
rescue
protect
shield
order protection
hold you
keep you
protect (again)
answer
be with
rescue (again)
satisfy
AND give salvation.


When I read God's word and apply it to life events as I experience them, I am aware that my professional knowledge is a filter that influences my understanding. Midwifery is not just about the birth of babies: it is about knowing and understanding life as God created it, and recognising the points at which that normal physiological process faces danger, threat, "trap", "terror", "plague", "pestilence", or "the disaster that strikes at midday".

The hope that the psalmist knew, and that has been known in every generation of God's precious people, is a living and active hope. The place of shelter; the surety of rest; the promise of salvation is ongoing in each situation that we face.

Springtime in Melbourne

A posy of flowers that Poppy and I gathered from the garden thismorning.

once we were young