Dried Fruit For Ultimate Christmas Pudding

Asked by LCarlisle. Answered on 18th December 2020

Full question

I have dried currants, jumbo Thompson seedless raisins (I'm told those are like sultanas), and organic raisins. I haven't got prunes, but I do have dates and dried Rainier cherries. Can I use either or both of those instead in the Ultimate Christmas Pudding?

I can go out and get golden raisins if those would be better than the Thompsons that I've got, and I could get prunes as well, if dates and/or cherries won't work. I'm already off to a very late start on this!

Ultimate Christmas Pudding

By Nigella

Our answer

Nigella's Ultimate Christmas Pudding (from NIGELLA CHRISTMAS) is made with a combination of raisins, sultanas and roughly chopped prunes. The prunes should be the pitted, ready-to-eat type. All of the dried fruit is soaked in Pedro Ximenez sherry before being cooked in the pudding.

For the currants and sultanas you can substitute other small dried fruits such as golden raisins, raisins and cranberries, or a mixture of these. Use a total weight of dried fruits equivalent to 300g (or 2 cups if using these dried fruits) and we would have at least half of the mixture in either raisins or sultanas. Dried cherries are a possibility but they may need to be roughly chopped if they are large and don't use too many if they are sour cherries. We would prefer not to have a substitute for the prunes as the prunes seem to melt into the pudding, providing moisture and richness that may not be gained from other dried fruits.