It's already time to make your plum pudding. Hugo Arnold on the ingredients that make a delicious dessert
There is true alchemy in Christmas pudding. Combine spices, fruit, nuts and alcohol now and, by Christmas, time should have mellowed them. I use my grandmother's recipe, which makes puddings that are light as a feather and, most importantly, full of complex flavours.
A word of warning, though: being thrifty, Gran used up old packets of spices before splashing out on new ones - and, being of that generation, bought everything ground. If you want a pudding with attitude, it pays to buy and grind your spices to order. Last year's mixed spice may well be a year or two old.
Shopping for a Christmas pudding is a day's work in itself, particularly if you pay attention to the fruit - a pretty key element. Good candied fruit comes from delicatessens, where, if you are lucky, you will be presented with five-crown sultanas, X-rated golden raisins, Amorena (black) cherries, dark forbidding prunes, whole pears, crystallised ginger and whole glace mandarins.
Peter Ward, who runs Country Choice in Nenagh, source of all my candied fruit, is an unashamedly European buyer when it comes to this. The cherries are good in Italy, he says, but the mandarins are better in Spain and the prunes are better in France. This is an ancient trade, and any mention of food miles - it is usually a good idea to buy local produce, after all - gets short change. The idea of preserving, of trading in the bounty of the summer, has gone on for centuries, and he sees no reason to stop.
It is a common idea that vegetable suet is the same as beef suet. It is not. On the basis that Christmas day is no time to be worrying about cholesterol, it is far better to leg it to the butcher and ask for a whole piece, to grate at home. The flavour is far superior.
The final ingredient to mention is the bread for your crumbs. This needs to be as good a loaf as you can find. You want the texture to be open, not pappy - which is what sliced white will give you. Don't worry whether you use white or brown: the result is pretty dark anyway.
CHRISTMAS PUDDING
This makes enough for one large (1.2 litre) pudding with some left over for the ice cream. Wrap the extra in foil and steam it with the pudding. Serves 10-12
225g breadcrumbs
50g flour
225g chopped suet
225g raisins
225g sultanas
225g currants
50g mixed peel
50g citron peel
50g ground almonds
225g demerara sugar
1 tsp mixed spice
zest and juice of 1 lemon
4 eggs
150ml brandy
150ml rum
225g chopped apple
good pinch salt
½ tsp grated nutmeg
Put all the ingredients in a large mixing bowl and combine thoroughly. The best way to do this is with your hands; using a wooden spoon is exhausting. Leave overnight. Transfer to a greased 1.2 litre pudding basin with a sheet of greaseproof paper lining the bottom (this is to prevent sticking).
Cover the top with greaseproof paper and a layer of tin foil. Secure with string. Steam in a large covered saucepan, half-filled with boiling water, for four hours, topping up with boiling water as necessary. Remove, allow it to cool and store in a cool place.
On Christmas Day, steam again, but this time for two hours. Serve with brandy butter, cream or both.
CHRISTMAS-PUDDING ICE CREAM WITH CLEMENTINE SALAD
This, to my mind, is far more delicious than frying Christmas pudding in butter. It is a refreshing end to a post-Christmas Day meal, when you want the festivities to linger but with a lighter note on the food.
100g caster sugar
4 egg yolks
375g full-cream milk
200ml whipping cream
2 tbsp brandy
200g Christmas pudding, diced or crumbled
200g caster sugar
8 clementines
1 tbsp brandy
Combine the sugar and egg yolks, and whisk until pale. Bring the milk to boiling point, remove from the heat and pour on to the egg-and-sugar mixture, whisking all the time.
Pour into a clean saucepan, place over a moderate heat and stir until it is thick, making sure the mixture doesn't catch, particularly at the edges. As soon as a line drawn with your finger through the custard on the back of a spoon remains, remove from the heat and pour into a clean bowl. If it overcooks at this stage you will end up with sweet scrambled eggs. If you are concerned, sit the clean bowl in ice and pour the mixture through a sieve, which will catch any overcooked lumps.
Combine the custard with the cream and brandy, stir and transfer to an ice-cream maker or freezer. Remove after half an hour and stir. Return to the freezer and repeat, half an hour later, this time stirring in the Christmas pudding. Return to the freezer, stirring once or twice until frozen. This will need 10-15 minutes at room temperature to soften when you come to eat it.
For the salad, combine the sugar with 200ml of water in a saucepan. Zest the clementines, using a vegetable peeler, and finely chop the zest. Drop it into the syrup and poach for 20-30 minutes or until it starts to turn a caramel colour.
Remove as much of the pith as possible from the clementines, then slice into discs. Add the caramelised zest to the clementines and mix well. You may need to add a few tablespoons of water to the caramelised zest, over a moderate heat, to make it liquid enough to pour over the clementines. Add the brandy and set aside until needed.