The Great PhD Pudding Stir-Up

Today was The Great PhD Pudding Stir-Up

What a way to celebrate the final post in a month of blogging every single day; with a post about 20 people getting together to make Christmas puddings!
That's right, today I brought the tradition of homemade Christmas puddings to an international group of pudding novices. We had Americans, Canadians, Germans, Portuguese, Thai, Malaysian, and even a couple of token Brits. It was such a laugh. Who knew such hilarity could be had by communally measuring ingredients, grating apples, beating eggs, and stirring a massive pan of pudding mix, whilst sipping mulled wine and making wishes.
It was the perfect way to welcome the beginning of the festive season. By the end of the afternoon everyone had a pudding to take away, having had their turn stirring and making a wish. The washing up was quite a task, and explaining the intricacies of steaming somewhat difficult to justify ("What? You steam it twice?! You cook it once now and again on Christmas day?!") but hopefully when people tuck into their homemade PhD pudding on Christmas day, and can share a little bit of traditional goodness, it'll all be worth it.
Today to make 19 puddings we used:

3.4kg dried fruit soaked in 500ml brandy (sultanas, currents, figs, apricots, candied peel, cherries and cranberries)
6 apples, grated
zest and juice of 6 oranges
18 eggs, beaten
750g suet
750g breadcrumbs
1kg muscovado sugar
525g self-raising flour
6tsp mixed spice
3tsp nutmeg

That's a whole load of pudding mix and it took some strength to stir it all together!I certainly had a fantastic time and can't wait to organise the next PhD baking social get together. Cupcakes at Easter anyone?p.s. As of midnight NaBloPoMo is over. No more frantic dashes to the computer at the last minute in the hopes of finding some inspiration. I've really enjoyed it, and I have to admit that I'm rather proud of the fact that I've managed it. I never thought I had this much writing and baking in me, and we're not even part-way into the proper Christmas cooking! I hope you've enjoyed it too, and tomorrow I should have a little reveal to add some icing to the NaBloPoMo "cake." Daily posting might be over, but watch this space!

A photo essay: how to feed a group of hungry festive pudding stirrers.

Tart that's not a tart, cos it's a pie!

So last week we had a whole load of confusion about a tart. I kept calling it a pie, and it wasn't, it was a tart. Now I have the other problem, I've made a pie, but it's in a tart dish, so it's blatantly a tart!


This is indeed the pie I was going to make last week when all this confusion started. Back then I didn't have the ingredients, and so instead we had to struggle on like the troupers we are and make do with a cranberry and pecan frangipane tart. We suffer in this flat we really do.


Tonight we have friend coming for dinner and I wanted a nice dessert. The cranberries in the fridge were still good and I had a nice new batch of cooking apples. It just had to happen. This time however, it wasn't having the ingredients that was the problem, it was quite the opposite, I had the butter, and could plan for the cream cheese, except one of our friends doesn't eat dairy. When asked by N if this was a problem, I laughed, "no no," I said, "it's not a problem, it's a challange!" I definitely enjoy this stuff far too much.


So yesterday I prepared the pie, veganising it as I went along. It wasn't actually as difficult as I'd expected. I replaced the cream cheese with silken tofu, and the butter in the pastry with vegan margarine, and the egg with soya milk. This made the pastry less fluffy, but it still looks pretty good. In fact, I think it looks downright pretty if you ask me.


We haven't tried it yet of course - it's taken some will power not to, I can tell you - so I will have to report on the flavour and response later, but hopefully it'll be a winner. I'm going to serve it with whipped brandy soya cream so if nothing else at least the booze should go down a treat!

here's the recipe. I adapted it from one in the Sainsbury's magazine.

Cranberry and apple pie (Makes one 9'' pie)

375g of your favourite sweet pastry (replace the butter with vegan marg and any egg or milk with soya milk)

250g cranberries
250g apples, peeled, cored and sliced thinly
juice of one orange
200g light muscovado sugar
200g silken tofu

Lightly flour the worksurface and roll out the dough and line the tin, collecting the scraps to make the lattice top. Chill for at least 30 minutes. Preheat the oven to 180C.

Put the cranberries, apples and orange juice in a saucepan and simmer uncovered until all the berries have popped, the apple is cooked and it is a thick bubbling sauce - aprox 15mins. Stir in the sugar and then leave to cool.

Gently prick pastry shell with a fork, line it with parchment and fill with baking beads. Bake for 20 mins, then remove the beads and cook for a further 5mins, until dry. Leave to cool.

Stir half the cold cranberry mixture into the tofu and blend until smooth. Spread evenly over the base. Cover with the remaining cranberry mixture, then with strips of rolled leftover dough make a lattice top.

Bake for aprox 40-50mins, until the pastry top is golden (keep your eyes on this, in my oven it took a while, but it might be much faster in yours.

Serve warm, or at room temperature.

So good they baked them twice

I've been having lots of fun in the kitchen today. I have been making some preparations for the busy weekend ahead. We've got friends coming for dinner tomorrow evening, DnD on Saturday and then it's the Great Pudding Stir-Up on Sunday.

I'm going to do the majority of the festive baking tomorrow, but couldn't resist giving this recipe for biscotti a go today. It was a handy one to start with not only because I knew they would keep for a couple of days, but also because there is talk of a cookie exchange in December and I wanted to try out some ideas. Someone had suggested that biscotti would be a good idea because they're somewhat sturdier than the average cookie, so good for shipping. Not having made them before I wanted to give it a go before doing the batch to send. I learnt from my jam exchange mistakes you see! No leaving it to the last minute this time around.

The only recipes I could find for biscotti were nut-based versions. What I wanted was something more suitable for the season. So I took the recipe in the Ottolenghi cookbook and replaced the pistachios and stem ginger with dried cranberries and white chocolate, keeping the little bit of ground ginger and using port rather than brandy (because I still haven't bought any since using it all up in the pudding!).

The results have come out rather well. I only had a sneaky taste of the edge pieces, but I think it's going to go down rather well on Sunday, and hopefully they will hold up for posting across the world.

I only made half a batch, but still got 11 pieces of biscotti out of it. I'll definitely be making this again - provided N likes it and could help out in the eating!

Cranberry and White Chocolate Biscotti - adapted from Ottolenghi

This recipe makes the full batch

80g unsalted butter
110g caster sugar
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1 tbsp port (or brandy)
150g plain flour
1/2 ground ginger
1/4 tsp salt
80g dried cranberries
60g white chocolate, chopped

Line a baking sheet with parchment.

Cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Gradually add the eggs, beating after each addition. Stir in the brandy, followed by the flour, salt and ground ginger. Finally stir in the cranberries and chocolate.

Lightly dust the lined baking sheet with flour and spoon the mixture on to the tray. Leave to rest in the fridge for about 30mins so it firms up.

Preheat the oven to 170C

Take the dough out of the fridge, and using your hands and some extra flour roll and shape it into a log of about 25cms length (I found this to be rather sticky, so flour it up!). It will spread during baking and so it doesn't need to be perfect. Bake for 20mins then remove from the oven and allow to cool. Turn the oven down to 130C

The dough will still be slightly soft because of being partially baked. Once it's cooled, use a serated knife and cut into 1cm strips. Lay them flat on the tray and return to the oven for about 40mins. Remove and cool.

A photo essay: little parcels of goodness

Secrets and pies (or rather puddings)

I have been doing secret things in the kitchen today. A secret experiment involving expanding my skills and hopefully making something very tasty indeed. Only problem is, I can't tell you about it! Well, not now, as it's a secret for N and I don't want him finding out. I'll tell you on December 1st, how about that? In the meantime I shall leave you with this image and you can have fun guessing.


The other exciting thing today was the arrival of these lovely cards:


They are festive postcards, all images taken by me, and on the back they have reheating instructions for Christmas puddings! I wanted all the pudding participants on Sunday to not only have a memento in the form of pudding, but one for a little longer, hence the cards. Also, I figured that as many people have never made or eaten Christmas pudding before, they may be a little bemused on the day as to how to reheat it, hence the handy instructions on the back.

As you might be gathering I am a little enthusiastic about the impending festive season! I think this year I might actually manage a completely homemade Christmas, with not only the main meal, but dessert and all the chutneys and preserves! If only I'd thought to learn about wine making. Oh well, got to have something to aim for next year! (I'm kidding of course...or am I?! hehe).

Pie that's not a pie, cos it's a tart

I keep calling this a pie. It's not, it's a tart, but I was going to make a pie and I think that's why I keep getting it wrong.

Whilst at the market I managed to pick up fresh cranberries, something that is difficult to come by here. I was delighted and couldn't wait to try out some great recipe with ones that were fresh, rather than frozen.

So I pored over my recipe cuttings and I found a cranberry and apple pie that had caught my eye about a month ago. It was perfect. Except that it wasn't, because I didn't have all the ingredients. Oops!

So then I decided to take inspiration once more from Smitten Kitchen and bake the cranberry pecan frangipane tart. Not only did this have fresh cranberries and pastry, but a frangipane that N would actually be able to eat. You see, N doesn't like almonds, which is rather a shame considering my love of marzipan and frangipane (then again, it means I don't bake those things, or buy those things, and so am probably indebted to him for saving my waistline!). But here was a recipe that promised all the goodness of spongy frangipane, with the caramelly and festive flavour of pecans, cut through with the tartness of the cranberries. It sounded like just the thing to usurp the place of the pie.

As it happened I baked it for too long, and it came out more toasty than golden, but it still tasted great and retained its softeness. Definitely a winner, and I can't wait to try it with sharp raspberries. It would be a great festive treat over the holidays, and apart from having to wait while you chill the dough and the filling it's not actually that hard.

I won't post the recipe, because for once there was very little adaptation on my part. I did use port instead of brandy (because I used up all our brandy making mincemeat and puddings, oops!), but I think that was it.

It's telling that after one and a half days there is only a tiny slice left...and there's only two of us eating it!