Christmas Pudding with Dried Fruit and Nuts
Ingredients
10-12 servings
For the mixture
- Raisins (assorted) 200 g
- Sweet prunes (pitted) 100 g
- Dried apricots (pitted) 100 g
- Dried lemons or pineapple 100 g
- Dried cornelian cherries, kiwi, cherries, cranberries 50 g each
- Walnuts (shelled) 100 g
- Almonds (peeled) 100 g
- Cashews 50 g
- Hazelnuts (shelled) 50 g
- Pumpkin seeds (shelled) 50 g
- Rum, brandy, whiskey 400 ml (we used 250 ml whiskey and 150 ml rum)
- Boiled water as needed (to cover the mixture)
- Eggs 3
- Butter 120 g (20 g of it for greasing the pan)
- Brown sugar 120 g
- Ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves (ground) to taste
For soaking the pudding
- Liquid left after soaking 1 cup (200 ml)
- Apricot jam (runny) 1 tbsp (20 g)
- Tangerine peel 1
- Sweet dried apricots 3
For decoration
- Dried apricots, prunes, nuts, raisins a handful (from the overall mix)
- Powdered sugar optional
Step-by-step recipe
Soaking the dried fruit and nuts
We tried to make sure our homemade pudding contained thirteen main additions: nuts, seeds, dried fruit and candied fruit. This number of additions is traditional for Christmas. You can change the ingredients depending on your wishes and what you have. For example, at first we planned to use candied lemon, but in the end replaced it with dried pineapple. Peeled almonds were not available in the shop, so we bought raw almonds, peeled them and toasted them in a dry frying pan.
Chop the dried fruit and mix it with the nuts. Set aside the walnuts and hazelnuts separately, as they will be needed for the butter mixture. Keep a handful of whole dried fruit and nuts to decorate the finished dessert.
Cut all the fruit and candied fruit with a knife into pieces the size of the raisins you bought. Mix the raisins with the chopped fruit. Add roughly chopped cashews and almonds and the peeled pumpkin seeds. Put everything into a bowl with a lid or a container for soaking.
Soak the mixture in alcohol. Pour 2 cups of strong, aromatic alcohol over the mixture; we mixed 250 ml of whiskey and 150 ml of rum. Add boiled water so that the liquid level is above the mixture. Cover with a lid and leave to soak at room temperature for 8 hours or overnight.
Then pour all the liquid into a cup, as you will need it for soaking the pudding later. Tip the mixture into a colander and let the remaining liquid drain off.
The pudding mixture
Every pudding recipe includes fragrant spices. As a rule, cinnamon, cloves and nutmeg are always added. For a bright flavor, dry ground ginger works very well: it gives a barely noticeable bitterness and a special aroma.
Grind the spices: put them all in a mortar and grind, then sift through a small sieve.
Grind the walnuts and hazelnuts into fine crumbs. You can briefly fry them first in a dry hot frying pan.
Mix the butter with the eggs, sugar and spices. In a deep bowl or mixer bowl, put the softened butter (keep 20 grams to grease the baking pan) and crack in the eggs. Add the brown sugar: it will make the pudding darker, and almost black molasses is often used for this. Add the sifted spices and mix until smooth.
Stir in the nuts and soaked fruit. Add all the ground walnuts and hazelnuts to the bowl with the butter mixture and mix thoroughly. In essence, this is the mixture that binds the ingredients together, since the dessert is made without flour. Add all the fruit, candied fruit, nuts and seeds soaked the day before and mix with a spatula so that the ingredients are evenly distributed.
Baking
You can use any suitable pan for baking. For some reason I have always associated pudding with a tall round cake with a wide round hole in the middle. Such pans are sold in shops, and we sometimes bake homemade fruitcake in one.
Put the mixture in the pan. Generously grease the inside of the pan with the butter you set aside, doing it carefully and leaving no gaps. Transfer all the mixture into the pan and level it.
Bake the pudding for about 2 hours in an oven preheated to 150-160 degrees. During this time the mixture heats through and bakes, the remaining alcohol evaporates, and the surface darkens considerably. Do not overbake: it is enough for the mixture to set and darken. Take the pan out of the oven and let the pudding cool completely in the pan.
Soaking syrup
Make the soaking syrup while the pudding is baking. Pour 1 cup of the liquid (200 ml) left after soaking the dried fruit into a small saucepan and add 1 tbsp of runny apricot jam (20 g). For aroma we added the peel of one fresh tangerine and 3 pieces of sweet dried apricot. Heat over low heat until the alcohol evaporates: the liquid will become slightly thick and very fragrant.
Take the pudding out of the pan and pour the syrup over it. Simply turn the cooled pudding over onto a large plate; usually it comes away from the pan easily. If it has stuck in places, don’t worry: any damage can be hidden with a decoration of nuts and candied fruit or a dusting of powdered sugar. Pour the prepared sweet syrup over the cake.
It needs at least 1 hour to soak, but it is better if the pudding stands for longer.
Serving
Decorate the pudding. Arrange pieces of dried apricot and prune, whole nuts and raisins on top of the dessert, then drizzle over a little more syrup to hold them in place. If you like, you can dust it with powdered sugar through a small sieve.
Homemade sweet pudding with nuts and candied fruit keeps quite a long time but, as a rule, is eaten quickly. It is a great dish for the festive table not only at Christmas but also on other holidays; we will make it for Easter. It is also an excellent dessert, and very good with sweet wine.
Calories and macros
575 kcal
Serving ≈ 170 g
- Protein10 g8% of kcal
- Fat31 g55% of kcal
- Carbs45 g36% of kcal
100 g339 kcalProtein 6 gFat 18 gCarbs 26.7 g
Calculated from the recipe ingredients, excluding salt and spices. Data: USDA and Matvaretabellen.