Christmas Pudding

Christmas Pudding In my family, we always have Christmas pudding and it’s about that big. And quite often I make it. And I need to make it… if I was a really good housewife or cook, I’d make it six months before Christmas. But I don’t, I usually just make it a few weeks before. It’s really quite easy to make. It’s quick to make. But it takes lots of shopping and lots of weighing. It’s stuffed full of dried fruits and you make it in a pudding basin. And then when you come… To cook it, you have to boil it for a long long time. You steam it in the basin and a really good pudding might steam for about eight hours, at least. And then when you serve it, you have to switch all the lights off. And you turn it out of the bowl so it’s like a mound. And you pour warmed brandy over it. And as you walk into the darkened room, you light the brandy and it’s flaming blue as you walk in. It looks absolutely fantastic and everybody cheers and claps. And then in our family, we serve the pudding and we always choose little coins and wrapped them in silver paper and we push them into the pudding before we serve it. So if you are a lucky child, when you eat it, you’ll get a little coin wrapped in silver paper. And my dad used to make sure that all the children got one. He was very clever at serving it.