Christmas Pudding Making Day 2017

Can you believe it!? Christmas Pudding Making Day has come and gone again already and what a day it was!!

It is a well known fact that Christmas Pudding Making Day is one of my favourite days in the whole calendar. A little bubble of Christmassy warmth, nestled snugly amongst the reds, browns and golds of the crisp autumn leaves of October, CPMD is sticking on our cassette tape of Bing Crosby: Christmas with Bing and dancing around the kitchen to 'I wanna hitch a ride with Santa Clause', Christmas aprons and all. It's chopping cherries, cleaning raisins and currants and the smell of the lemon and orange zest combined with the mixed spices. It's, every year, wondering if we've put enough Guinness in, getting our hands in to mix it up and make a wish (or two) and most of all, it's time spent together, our little band of bakers.

Cherry Chopping

With so much going into the puddings, delegation of duties is an essential part of the pudding making process. Dried fruit must be weighed and cleaned in flour, lemons and oranges zested and juiced, apples and carrots grated and of course, cherries chopped! This has always been my duty... I have no idea when this decision came about but once it started, the job was mine and there was no two ways about it! The job included weighing them out, quartering them and then cleaning them off with flour. Quite a sticky business I must say but one I still love to this day.

This year our little chief supervisor Jakey, at 2 years 10 months old has joined his big sister Alice (5) as my second assistant cherry chopper!! A much coveted position and believe me, there was a serious application process to go through before the position could be filled. The most essential quality needed for the job was, of course, not eating all the cherries before they made it into the cake! I'm still quite surprised at how well Jakey did at this as he is notorious for his super sweet tooth!! After some initial training, he became quite the pro and actually lasted longer than his sister at the job. Alice, while being very skilled at the chopping, is not all that fond of sticky fingers and after a while I had to loan her out to the fruit cleaning department on the other side of the table.

And so, it was just Jacob and me chopping away with all our might, neither of us having the aversion to sticky finger that Alice has, but eventually he too felt the need to try his hand at a new skill and so, seeing as his work had been exemplary up to this and it was, after all, his first day, I sent him over to join his sister and finished the job off myself, content in the knowledge that I had successfully passed this age old tradition onto another generation.

A cracking business!

Last year Alice showed a strong talent in another area of the baking process that had, up to now, been overlooked. That area was egg cracking! Alice has an excellent flick of the wrist, tapping the knife on the egg shell with just the right force to crack it straight across in one go! She reminds me of the chef in Audrey Hepburn's Sabrina -" 1,2,3, Crack, new egg!". We made a really good team too! Alice would give it a strong tap, I'd open it up and we would both check for stray shell pieces before pouring it into the bowl.

This year Jakey decided to join our team, making our little conveyor belt even better. Alice would crack, I would check for shells and Jakey would pour into the bowl. Perfect, like a well oiled machine!!

My poor sister-in-law Sam got stuck with all the grating this year! Pretty much the worst job but somehow managed to get through without a single grated knuckle!! The true sign of a pro at work!

I love this part, before any of the wet ingredients are added in. The colours of the dried fruit, grated zest, carrots and apples look so beautiful and bring those lovely little butterflies in your tummy at the thought that Christmas is really on its way!

Finally, in go the wet ingredients; First the eggs, butter, lemon/orange juice and then the all import Guinness and brandy! The more the merrier!! Once it's all mixed up it's time to make a wish, the most powerful of all wishes in my opinion! For the best wish results there are some rules; Ideally, you have to use your (clean) hands. Give it a really good mix and whatever you do, don't tell anyone your wish!!

And that's it. Bowl it up, cover super tightly with baking paper, tied on with string and the next week would be spent baking them in a tray full of water. Two at a time for about 8 hours each!

This year we made 7 small puddings, 2 large and mammy made a Christmas cake too for good measure. Some for us and the rest for the family. One has already made it's way West with my auntie, wrapped up tightly, not to be opened until Christmas is really upon us.

With that done, the aprons go back in the drawer, Christmas with Bing goes back in his cassette case, not to be thought of until the festive season is truly upon us!!

Now it's time for ghost and ghouls, carving pumpkins and tails of the otherworldly for All Hallows Eve is nearly upon us.