ULTIMATE CHRISTMAS PUDDING

I don’t deny it: there is something unattractively boastful about calling one’s own recipe ‘ultimate’. But having soaked my dried fruit for this pudding in Pedro Ximénez – the sweet, dark, sticky sherry that has a hint of liquorice, fig and treacle about it – I know there is no turning back.

It’s not even as if it’s an extravagance: the rum or brandy I’ve used up till now are more expensive and do the trick less well. This is sensational. It has to be tried, and clamours to be savoured.

I know that many of you, tradition be damned, are resistant to Christmas pudding, and I do understand why. But you must try this. For until you do, you probably think all that dried fruit is, well, dry, and the pudding heavy. Yet this is far from the case: the fruit is moist and sticky, and the pudding mystifyingly, meltingly light.

Serves 10-16 as part of the Christmas feast, or 8-10 if not

150g (5½oz) currants

150g (5½oz) sultanas

150g (5½oz) prunes, scissored into pieces

175ml (6fl oz) Pedro Ximénez sherry

100g (3½oz) plain flour

125g (4½oz) breadcrumbs

150g (5½oz) suet

150g (5½oz) dark muscovado sugar

1tsp ground cinnamon

¼tsp ground cloves

1tsp baking powder

Grated zest of 1 lemon

3 eggs 1 medium cooking apple, peeled and grated

2tbsp honey

A sprig of holly, to decorate 125ml (4fl oz) vodka, to flame the pudding

Eggnog Cream (see right), to serve

You will need

1 x 1.7ltr (3pt) heatproof plastic pudding basin with lid

Put the currants, sultanas and prunes into a bowl with the

Pedro Ximénez, swill the bowl a bit, then cover with clingfilm and leave to steep overnight or for up to 1 week.

When the fruits have had their steeping time, put a large pan of water on to boil, or heat some water in a conventional steamer, and butter your heatproof plastic pudding basin, greasing the lid, too. In a mixing bowl, combine the remaining pudding ingredients, either in the traditional manner or just any old how; your chosen method of stirring, and who does it, probably won’t affect the outcome of your wishes or your Christmas. Add the steeped fruits, scraping in every last drop of liquor with a rubber spatula, and mix to combine thoroughly, then fold in cola- cleaned coins or heirloom charms. If you are at all frightened about chokinginduced fatalities at the table, do leave out the hardware.

Scrape and press the mixture into the pudding basin, squish it down and put on the lid. Then wrap with a layer of foil (probably not necessary, but I do it as I once had a lid-popping and water-entering experience when steaming a pudding) so that the basin is watertight, then either put the basin in the pan of boiling water (to come halfway up the basin) or in the top of a lidded steamer (this size of basin happens to fit perfectly in the top of my all-purpose pot) and steam for 5 hours, checking every now and again that the water hasn’t bubbled away.

When it’s had its 5 hours, remove gingerly (you don’t want to burn yourself) and, when manageable, unwrap the foil and put the pudding in its basin somewhere out of the way in the kitchen or, if you’re lucky enough, a larder, until Christmas Day.

On the big day, rewrap the pudding (still in its basin) in foil and steam again, this time for 3 hours. Eight hours combined cooking time might seem a faff, but it’s not as if you need to do anything to it in that time. To serve, remove from the pan or steamer, take off the lid, put a plate on top, turn upside down and give the basin a little squeeze to help unmould the pudding. Remove the basin – and voilà!

Put the sprig of holly on top of the dark, mutely gleaming pudding, then heat the vodka in a small pan (I use my diddy copper butter-melting pan) and the minute it’s hot, but before it boils

– you don’t want the alcohol to burn off before you attempt to flambé it – turn off the heat, strike a match, stand back and

light the pan of vodka, then pour the flaming vodka over the pudding and take it as fast as you safely can to your guests.