More Christmas Pudding Queries

Asked by Emmalhair. Answered on 3rd December 2014

Full question

It's my first time making the Ultimate Christmas Pudding and I want to use some prunes soaked in armagnac that I brought back from France, and use the armagnac they're soaked in for the fruit instead of the Pedro Ximenez. The only thing is the armagnac is a lot less sweet that this sherry - any advice on how much extra dark muscavado sugar to add to compensate? Thanks.

Hi, I will be making the Ultimate Christmas Pudding with vegetable shortening. I was just wondering what breadcrumbs you use, fresh homemade or the dry breadcrumbs out of a packet? Just asking as there is a vast difference in the dryness & I want it to turn out perfect especially with my very yummy sherry I'm going to use. Many Thanks

I poured the vodka into the pudding mixture instead of keeping it for flaming the pudding. What will happen after 5 hours steaming? Should I make a new pudding?

I made the lovely Ultimate Christmas Pudding pudding - my first ever! I am so excited to taste it. But I was reading the last paragraph in the instructions (yes, I should have done this first) and Nigella is talking about heating the vodka to light the pudding! If I was supposed to exclude it in the ingredients what will happen to my puddings? Help!

Our answer

Although Pedro Ximenez sherry tastes sweet, it does not have that much more sugar than an armagnac. So to compensate for the diffference you only need to add about 1 tablespoon or 15g extra dark muscovado sugar to the pudding mixture (or you can mix this into the armagnac before you soak the fruits).

Nigella's Ultimate Christmas Pudding (from Christmas and on the Nigella website) uses fresh breadcrumbs.

Nigella lists vodka in the ingredients list for her Ultimate Christmas Pudding as she prefer to use it for flaming the pudding. It tends to burn slightly better than the darker spirits such as rum or brandy. We would mention that we recommend that the recipes are read through fully before starting to cook. However we suspect that the pudding will be fine with the addition of the vodka as it doesn't have a strong flavour and so you should not really taste it. Some of the alcohol may evaporate during the steaming time. If you are not sure then take a teaspoonful from the top of the pudding (which will become the bottom when the pudding is turned out), heat it in a microwave, let it cool a litte and then taste. You will need some extra alcohol if you want to flame the pudding after the second steaming.