Wartime Christmas Pudding Recipe

By James Maddock

Updated 14/08/2011

Specially for Christmas this month we are featuring a genuine wartime Christmas pudding recipe. As you would expect it contains very little fat, not much sugar and calls for stout rather than rum or brandy. It does, however, contain a generous amount of dried fruit and eggs although the actual recipe suggests the use of powdered egg. After steaming the pudding appears rather light in colour compared to the traditional Christmas pudding which is usually very dark. The dark colour comes from the use of richer ingredients which were not available during the war but the wartime spirit came up with a very clever idea for making the pudding darker in appearance: a few drops of gravy browning did the trick!

Ingredients

• 2oz plain flour
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon grated nutmeg
• 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon mixed spice
• 3oz sugar
• 1lb mixed dried fruit
• 4oz breadcrumbs
• 3oz suet
• 1 tablespoon marmalade
• 2 eggs
• 1/4 pint stout

Method

• Sift the flour, salt and spices into a bowl.
• Add all the other ingredients.
• Mix very well.
• Pour into a well greased 2 pint pudding basin.
• Cover with foil or greaseproof paper.
• Steam for 4 hours.
• Remove from steamer.
• Allow to cool.
• Put a new cover on the basin.
• Store in a cool place.
• Before serving steam again for 2-3 hours to heat through.

Prep Time: 30 minutes

Cook Time: 240 minutes

Yield: 4 medium jars