How to make Christmas pudding the CWA way
They’re the best in the brandy butter biz, a formidable force of plump pudding perfectionists, and now the CWA have opened up their kitchen to teach us how to make Christmas pud at home. We try out a 90-year-old recipe handed down over generations.
Among many things I learnt from my morning at the CWA headquarters in Victoria, two were complete revelations.
The first was that making a Christmas pudding is actually really easy.
The second – and this is where the wisdom of country women passed down through the generations is both invaluable and timeless – was that you should always crack an egg on a flat surface.
The first will change this Christmas. The second will change every omelet I now make.
Every year, the Victorian branch of the CWA bakes hundreds of puddings for its famous Christmas fundraising sale and I’m tugging at the apron strings of Marie
Vassallo, CWA cooking convener and Christmas pudding perfectionist.
She’s going to teach me
how to make “figgy pudding” from a 90-year-old recipe, passed down from her husband’s grandmother who took the original from The Argus newspaper.
“This is definitely our go-to every year. It’s our family pudding, but I usually make
one about four times the size,” she says.
FIRST THINGS FIRST
Marie says now is the time to make your pudding to allow the flavours of the fruit to develop and mature. “All the ingredients will absorb the moisture (from the fruit and the steam cooking), but that takes time,” she says.
Marie says the joy of making your own pudding is twofold.
“You can get the kids or grandkids involved and it’s a lot of fun. And when you make things yourself you’re in charge of what you put in. We use real butter,
no preservatives, real fruit. That’s the difference.
“Something from the supermarket, you can be up to ingredient 24 before you come across something that looks like food.”
FAB FRUIT
“I always use Australian fruit, and I always add dried figs to my pudding,” Marie says. “It’s figgy pudding. We all know the song, ‘oh bring us some figgy pudding!’ And it just adds extra warmth to the fruit flavour.”
Marie likes to use Sunbeam dried fruit for her pudding – “I like big, juicy fruit” – and cautions against adding glace cherries to a pudding.
“If you’re going to use a bag of mixed fruit – and a lot of people will just use that, which has cherries in it – it’s not the end of the world, but if you’re mixing your fruit individually, don’t add them in.”
SPICE IS RIGHT
Mixed spice, cinnamon and nutmeg form the backbone of your pudding.
“Without those it just doesn’t smell like Christmas,” Marie says. She uses freshly opened packet spices, and a nub of grated nutmeg. “It smells divine.”
CREAM TEAM
“The more you cream your sugar and butter, the lighter your pudding will be. You can’t over-cream,” Marie says.
In a mixmaster to diced, room temperature butter slowly add the white sugar. Start at a low speed until combined and then increase and mix until the mixture is pale yellow, which will take a couple of minutes (you shouldn’t be able to feel the sugar crystals in the butter when rubbed between two fingers).
Add your eggs — cracked flat against the bench, which stops the shell splintering into the white, genius! — one at a time and gently mix.
“It’s going to look like scrambled eggs, but that’s fine,” Marie says. “Just add the smallest amount of flour, that helps to stop it looking like it’s curdling.”
MIX MASTER
Now it’s just a matter of adding the flour and the fruit and mixing together. Once the fruit and flour has combined with the creamed butter, add the milk (into which ¼ tsp baking powder has been dissolved) which will help loosen the mixture. Check the fruit is evenly distributed throughout.
BOWLED OVER
Any heatproof bowl will do for your pudding, which you can find in kitchen stores and many supermarkets. “It’s just to give shape to your pudding,” Marie says.
Take the calico — which you can source from somewhere like Spotlight, washed in the machine on hot without detergent and dried — and line the bowl, allowing enough material to gather and tie together at the top. Cut to size.
“Now this is controversial, but I never dampen my cloth, I just flour it,” Marie says, to somewhat disapproving looks from her fellow CWA pudding makers.
“If you want a thick crust to your pudding, you have to use a damp cloth. I just sprinkle flour over mine, then rub it in. This will still make a crust but not the thick, heavy one.”
Once your (damp or dry) cloth is floured, line the bowl and put the pudding mixture in.
TIE ME A RIVE R
“Now this the trickiest part of the whole process,” Marie says, with kitchen twine in hand.
“Pull the corners up, you want to make sure all the edges are caught up, so there’s no air coming into it. Make sure they’re all caught up together, then twist, then tie. You can’t over-tie the top. I don’t want water hitting the pudding. The cloth will be moist, but I don’t want water hitting the pudding.”
STEAM ROOM
Now the pudding needs to be cooked.
Put a saucer upside down in the bottom of the pot. This does two things, Marie says.
“It holds the pudding basin off the bottom of the pan, off the heat, because if it boils dry you won’t burn the bottom of the pudding. The other thing is when the water is bubbling, the saucer makes a ‘clack, clack, clack’ sound. When you stop hearing the clack, you’ve boiled your pot dry so you know you need to add more water.”
Fill the pot with boiling water so it reaches halfway up the pudding bowl, cover with a lid and keep on a rolling simmer for 2.5 hours, topping with boiling water as necessary.
COOL, CALM, COLLECTED
The only thing left now is to store your pudding somewhere dark and cool until Christmas.
“The back of the fridge is a really good place for your pudding. Between now and Christmas keep it there. It helps dry it out and keeps the air circulating,” Marie says. “I use my salami fridge. It’s just a normal fridge in the shed, but we usually hang our salami there. All the good things it does for salami is perfect for a pudding!”
DO THIS The annual CWA Christmas Fair is on Sat, Dec 1, from 9am-2pm at 3 Lansell Rd, Toorak. There’ll be Christmas puddings, Christmas cakes, shortbread, gingerbread, mince pies and more for sale. Pre-orders for puddings are welcomed. cwaofvic.org.cau
Serves 8
INGREDIENTS
125g butter
125g sugar
150g raisins
150g sultanas
25g peel
25g chopped figs
100g soft breadcrumbs (made from about 3 slices)
65g plain flour
25g chopped blanched almonds
½ tsp nutmeg
1/4 tsp each ground ginger, mixed spice, cinnamon, salt
1/2 tsp baking powder mixed into
1/4 cup milk
2 eggs
Additional flour for sprinkling
Unbleached calico, washed without soap
METHOD
1. Cream butter and sugar together. Add eggs one at a time and beat well in-between.
Add all remaining ingredients and mix well.
2. Prepare pudding cloth by rubbing extra flour into it. Use cloth, flour side away from the bowl, to line a pudding basin. Place mixture into cloth
3. Gather cloth up and twist slightly. Using cooking twine, tightly seal the cloth. Ensure that all edges are above the knot.
4. Bring a large saucepan of water to the boil. Place a saucer upside down in the pot, and rest the pudding basin on the saucer. Ensure that all the cloth is on top of the pudding in the bowl and none is in the water. The water should be halfway up the bowl. Place a tight fitting lid on. Check the pot every half hour to ensure there is sufficient water in it. If you need to add more, boil the kettle and add the boiling water into the pot - being careful not to pour any into the pudding basin.
5. This recipe makes a four-cup pudding bowl (8 people). It needs to steam for 2.5 hours.
Once the initial steaming is complete, remove pudding from the water, and allow to cool to room temperature. Leave pudding to dry out, in the fridge or hang in a cool part of the house.
To serve, steam as above for 1 hour and serve with custard and brandy sauce.
The SA star of CWA puddings
THE South Australian CWA has its share of great home cooks, but pudding central could well be in the Mid North.
SACWA member Katie I’Anson has spearheaded a pudding drive which is not only reviving great memories of Christmas past, but is a handy fundraiser for the Gilbert Valley branch.
It began some years ago when Katie had some extra puddings which she thought might sell at a trading table.
They were snapped up, so the next year they took subscriptions. Katie made 20, last year 50 and this year she has orders for more than 60.
Older people, particularly, commented that they wouldn’t go to the effort of purchasing the ingredients and making puddings themselves, but were happy to support the SACWA.
“I decided to continue it for our branch for a fundraising effort – and we can then give that back to our community and other rural communities in need,” Katie says.
Katie’s puddings are boiled in calico, rather than steamed, according to a closely guarded family recipe.
“It’s my great-grandmother’s recipe and my grandfather … used to make the recipe every year for our family,” she says. “It’s lovely to be able to share something that’s so special to our family with other members of our community.”
Katie works full-time with her husband on the family cropping farm near Marrabel, as well as being mother to four children under nine – so her puddings are usually made in the evening, after the children have gone to bed.
Katie boils her large puddings for 2½ hours.
“You can do lots of other things while they are cooking,” she says.
“I just pop back every now and then to make sure the water level is high enough.”
Katie stores them in the fridge to be in tip-top condition for Christmas Day.
“If you can ensure they are going to be in a cool, dry place and they are not going to sweat they probably would be OK out of the fridge, but for safety’s sake I like to encourage people to store them in the fridge,” Katie says.
Come serving time, they are good with ice cream or custard, “or if you are feeling a bit naughty, both,” Katie says.
“Most people zap them in the microwave but you could also reheat in a warm oven on a low heat. Some people enjoy them cold out of the fridge.”
The success of the pudding fundraiser is that they can be made in advance; Katie says four-six weeks before Christmas is ideal for the flavours to develop. But if you don’t have time, a couple of days before Christmas will still give you a “yummy” pudding.
-Robyn Douglass
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