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Christmas Pudding – plated and served
DessertsChristmasCakes & PastriesBritish

Christmas Pudding

The British Christmas pudding: dark, dense, keeps for months, and is traditionally served flaming.

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Preparation
40 min
Cook/bake time
6 hr
Total
18 hr 40 min
Difficulty
Medium
Calories
515 kcal
Servings
10 servings
Prep
40 min
Cooking & baking
6 hr
Resting
12 hr

Only 6 hr 40 min of that is hands-on – the rest takes care of itself.

The British Christmas pudding: dark, dense, keeps for months, and is traditionally served flaming. It is not baked but steamed in a water bath for hours, which keeps it moist instead of forming a crust. It is prepared weeks before the holidays because this pudding gets better with time, not worse.

Why this works

Steaming keeps the temperature constant at 100 degrees Celsius, and that is the reason for the entire texture: it never gets hot enough for a crust or for significant browning, so the pudding cooks for hours without becoming hard on the outside. During this time, something happens that baking heat would be too fast for, the dried fruits release sugar and absorb moisture until the batter and fruits have the same water content. This is exactly why the pudding keeps for months: there is no free water left for anything to grow in, and the alcohol further lowers the water activity. The fact that it improves with storage time is not nostalgia but slow esterification, over weeks, acids and alcohol create fruity flavor compounds that are not yet present when fresh.

Step-by-step instructions

  1. Soak fruits overnight

    Mix all the dried fruits with rum, orange juice, and orange zest, and let them sit covered overnight. They should completely absorb the alcohol and swell up, dry fruits would later draw moisture from the batter and make the pudding crumbly.

  2. Mix the batter

    Beat the butter and brown sugar until light and fluffy, stir in the eggs one at a time, and mix in the flour, breadcrumbs, almonds, and spices. Finally, add the grated apple and the soaked fruits along with their liquid. The batter is very dense and heavy, which is correct, it should drop from the spoon, not flow.

  3. Fill and seal the mold

    Thoroughly butter a pudding mold of about 1.5 liters and fill in the batter without pressing it down. Cover it with parchment paper and aluminum foil, folding a pleat into them, the pudding expands, and without this pleat, the cover will tear. Tie everything tightly under the rim with kitchen twine.

  4. Steam for six hours

    Place the mold on a trivet in a large pot and pour in boiling water up to halfway up the sides of the mold. Put the lid on and steam over low heat for six hours. Check the water level every hour and top up with hot water, if the pot boils dry, the pudding is ruined.

  5. Let it mature

    Let the pudding cool completely, replace the cover, and store it in a cool, dark place. Four weeks is good, eight is better. If you like, drizzle a tablespoon of rum over it every week. To serve, steam again for two hours and flambé hot with warmed brandy.

Our best tips

  • Traditionally, beef suet is used in the batter instead of butter. Butter is easier to find and tastes better to many, it makes the pudding slightly less dense, which is not a disadvantage.
  • To flambé, warm the brandy in a ladle until lukewarm before lighting it. Cold alcohol evaporates too little and barely catches fire, boiling hot alcohol burns off too quickly.
  • The pudding can be started as early as October. In the UK, the Sunday before the first Advent is traditionally baking day, "Stir-up Sunday", when every family member gives it a stir and makes a wish.

Tasty variations

Alcohol-free

Replace rum and brandy with apple juice and a tablespoon of apple cider vinegar. However, the pudding will then only keep for about two weeks because the alcohol is missing as a preservative, but it can be frozen.

Small puddings

Divide among six 250 ml cups and steam for only two hours. Practical for gifting and significantly faster.

Nutrition facts

Per serving (1 servings)
Calories515 kcal
Protein8 g
Carbohydrates83 g
– of which sugar55 g
Fat16 g
Fiber5 g

Where the 515 kcal come from

per serving
Calculated from the ingredients – how we do it

We add up reference values for every ingredient and divide by the number of servings. These assumptions are baked in:

  • Reference values per 100 g – for the raw ingredient, exactly as listed.
  • Tinned goods count at drained weight, bone-in meat at purchase weight: you eat about 70 per cent of a chicken thigh and leave the rest.
  • Water evaporates as you cook. The energy stays in the pot, the weight does not – so the figure is per serving, not per 100 g of finished dish.
  • Anything listed without a quantity – “salt and pepper” – is not counted.

A guide value, not a lab measurement: no two onions weigh the same, and fat content varies from pack to pack.

How we calculate nutrition →

Frequently asked questions

How many calories are in a slice of Christmas pudding?

Around 515 kcal per serving for ten servings. That is a lot, but there is a reason: dried fruits are concentrated sugar, and then there is butter and almonds. Traditionally, it is served in thin slices, not as a piece of cake.

How long does Christmas pudding keep?

Stored in a cool, dark place, at least two months, and with regular rum top-ups, even a year. The high sugar and alcohol content binds the free water to such an extent that nothing can grow.

Can I make it without a pudding mold?

Yes. A heatproof bowl or several wide-mouth mason jars work as long as they can be sealed tightly. The trivet in the pot is important so that the vessel does not sit directly on the bottom.

Why is it steamed twice?

The first round cooks it, the second warms it up for serving and makes it juicy again. Between the two are the weeks in which it matures, that is the actual purpose of the process.

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