This November, Toronto teacher Trish Gresham and her family will make this rich, traditional pudding for the 70th consecutive year in Canada. Her mother, Lilian Rollinson, brought the recipe — already a family tradition for 30 years — from England in 1932. Trish serves it with hard sauce, while her sister, Pamela Scott, simply pours cold whipping cream over top.
- Portion size 16 servings
Ingredients
Hard Sauce:
Method
In large bowl, combine bread crumbs, suet, raisins, currants, candied peel, sugar, milk, almonds, eggs, lemon rind and juice, 1/4 cup (50 mL) of the rum, allspice, cloves, nutmeg and cinnamon; cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 24 hours.
Stir in flour and remaining rum; scrape into 2 greased 6-cup (1.5 L) pudding moulds or bowls, smoothing tops. Place circle of waxed paper directly on surface of each. Cover with lids. (Or make 1-inch/2.5 cm pleat across middle of large piece of foil and fit over top, pressing down side. Trim edge, leaving 3-inch/8 cm overhang; press down side. Tie string securely around mould about 1 inch/2.5 cm from rim; fold foil overhang up over string.)
Place moulds on rack in deep pot; pour enough boiling water into pot to come halfway up side of moulds. Cover and bring to boil; reduce heat and simmer, adding boiling water as necessary to maintain level, until skewer inserted in centre comes out clean, about 5 hours. Remove moulds from pot and let cool slightly. (Make-ahead: Let cool. Unmould, wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for up to 1 week. Or store in cool, dry place for up to 3 months. To reheat, see instructions for Steamed Pumpkin Pudding) Run knife around edge of pudding to loosen; turn out onto warmed platters.
Hard Sauce: Beat butter with icing sugar until fluffy. Beat in 1 tbsp (15 mL) of the rum; set aside. In small saucepan, warm remaining rum over medium heat; drizzle over hot puddings and light with long match, jiggling platters to keep flame lit. When flame dies, serve with hard sauce.
Nutritional facts <b>Per serving:</b> about
- Sodium 122 mg
- Protein 5 g
- Calories 469.0
- Total fat 21 g
- Cholesterol 56 mg
- Saturated fat 11 g
- Total carbohydrate 67 g
%RDI
- Iron 12.0
- Folate 10.0
- Calcium 7.0
- Vitamin A 6.0
- Vitamin C 7.0
