The mix up...

It's that time of year again.  When your entire house is overtaken by the all pervading whiff of mixed spice and cinnamon. Yes, this week has been all about Christmas cakes and puddings ladies.  I was three days late for Stir Up Sunday, but I reckon the amount of alcohol 'splashed' in will soothe the ruffled feathers of any Pudding Fairy who might have been watching.

The main reason I had waited to do them was so that the mother could help.  What's lovely about this, is that I use her great-grandmother's Christmas pudding recipe (neatly typed up on yellowing lined paper with lots of wine glass stains scattered across it.  Measurements of dried fruits have been crossed out and modified and, most unsurprisingly, the amount of alcohol in each pudding was increased two fold.  

The recipe contains items that we don't seem to be able to source easily anymore such as Barley Wine, so I have made my own mental alterations to Nanny's recipe, adding Guinness instead. I also don't like nuts, so the ground almonds are replaced with extra rum  and I have the same approach to the dried peel, which, let's face it, nobody likes.  I framed the recipe some years ago as it's so fragile, and it was this that was propped up on my worktop, along with the food mixer and all the ingredients.

In a previous life, I used to make Christmas puds for a living, usually making around two hundred each year for various Christmas markets, and ten years later, I find it almost impossible to make less than twenty puddings which end up going here, there and everywhere.  So I was very strict with myself this year, and decided that I would simply double Nanny's recipe ingredients which would made four two pint puddings.  One for me, one for my father-in-law, one for my friend Mrs H and a 'just in case' spare.

I had soaked the fruit in enough alcohol overnight to ensure that no Christmas guest will be able to stand once they've had a slice, and together the mother and I piled in all the other ingredients into the large washing up bowl I use.  Pinnies on, sleeves rolled up, jewellery removed and it was four hands in the bowl mixing everything together to a beautiful gloopy mess.  There was a close call when the mother decided that sixteen eggs were needed rather than eight, but I headed her off at the pass with that one, and the puddings made their way into the four basins quite successfully.

Looking into the still half full washing up bowl, the mother said, 'What happens to all that lot then?' I then came up with the brilliant idea of sending a message to all my twenty nine neighbours, asking them if they wanted Christmas pudding mix.  'Bring a basin, and I'll fill it up for you'. We were 'sold out' with orders after five minutes, and a steady queue of lovely ladies turned up with outstretched hands holding their basins (they looked like a load of middle aged extras from Oliver Twist).  So that was a good deed done.  

As long as they taste ok.  

Any complaints and I'll be blaming the mother...