Microwave Christmas Pudding!

I love Christmas pudding:not an agape selfless, sharing love but an egocentric desire for a large helping, with brandy butter. If I share, then there is less for me... Actually, no, I am not quite so mean. I love what Christmas pudding represents: the rich fruit reminds me of God's lavish generosity towards me, the dark colour symbolising depth of unfathomable meaning, the brandy butter the sweetness of God's love.  I don't often, these days,make Christmas pudding: I used to, in Kenya, including pineapple and mango instead of apple and vine fruits, adding carrot and marmelade. Then, on returning to England, I discovered the microwave pudding. Now I have found a recipe for it. This is what I made today: 

Microwave Christmas pudding ... adapted from Marguerite Patten's recipe

Ingredients (serves 4-6)

50g Butter

50g plain flour

Half a teaspoon of mixed spice

75g white breadcrumbs

100g soft dark brown sugar

150g sultanas

75g Raisins

25g Currants

50g Dates

50g Cherries

125g currants

25g coarsely chopped peel

50g grated carrot

grated rind and juice of half lemon

2 eggs

2 tablespoon treacle

1 tablespoon golden syrup

50ml Orange Juice

(But I used dried mixed fruit instead of the separate fruits, and no grated rind: too lazy.)

Method:

Sieve all the dry ingredients together and mix well. Stir in all remaining ingredients until completely mixed. Lightly grease a half litre (1 pint) pudding basin and fill with the mixture. Cover with cling film and make a slit in the top to allow steam to escape. Cook on microwave high for 10 minutes. Allow to stand for 10 minutes after cooking. Sprinkle with brandy and serve.  (Or cook on medium for 10 minutes, let stand for 10 minutes and then cook again for 10 minutes.)

If made in advance, reheat for 2 - 3 minutes on medium.

The shortcut -which can be made on the day or up to 10 months in advance...

Ingredients

10 oz good mincemeat - if you're organised you can make your own, if not use a good quality make (I use Marks and Spencers).
8 oz brown sugar (molasses style)
8 oz self-raising flour.
3 well-beaten eggs
5 oz marmalade (the fine shred is best)
1 oz glace cherries
4 tbs whisky
4 oz frozen butter which is grated or chopped to fine pieces.

1. Line a pudding basin (2 pt size)with greaseproof paper.

2. Thoroughly mix all the ingredients together in a bowl.
3. Spoon the mixture into the greased bowl and cover it with greaseproof paper.
4. Put bowl on plate and cook in microwave on medium power for 20 - 25 minutes.
5. Test it with a skewer of knife - if it is 'done' the skewer will come out clean.
6. Leave to 'rest' for 5 minutes.
7. Carefully turn on to serving plate and decorate with cream and holly.
8. You can serve with other things like Brandy Butter, Rum Sauce, Custard or whatever you prefer.

Or the SLOW COOKER version:

Ingredients
2 oz plain flour, pinch of salt, 2 tsp mixed spice, 4 oz currants, 4 oz sultanas, 4 oz raisins, 4 mixed chopped peel, 4 oz shredded suet, 4 softbrown sugar, 4 oz fine white breadcrumbs, 2 oz chopped blanched almonds, grated rind of 1 lemon, 2 eggs beaten, 2 tbsp black treacle, 1 tbsp brandy, a little stoutale or milk for mixing

Method

sieve together the flour,salt and spice,add all the dry ingredients and stir well. Add the eggs,treacle and brandy
with sufficient liquid to make a soft clinging mixture.
(NB. if the pudding basins are metal or foil, they should be lined with greaseproof paper to prevent the acid in the fruit attaking the metal surface during storage)
divide mixture between the greased containers, leaving about half an inch headspace,cover with a double thickness of greaseproof paper or foil.
pe-heat the slow cooker on high for 15 mins. Stand the container in the slow cooker and then pour a pint of boiling water around it, cook on high,then low, or high continuously. cool the pudding and cover with fresh greaseproof paper or foil for storage.
HIGH for 1 hour,then LOW for12 hours
or
HIGH for 7 hours
TO REHEAT, pre-heat the slow cooker on high for 15 mins,stand container in the cooker then pour hot water around it,
heat on HIGH for 3 hours.

A 3pt/1.8l pudding basin sized pudding needs cooking for 10 hours and a further 2 hours on the day.

Royal Icing

My mother's royal icing, only for Christmas cakes. Yet I know that, without the glycerine, this is a marvellous substitute for cement, holding many a gingerbread house together.
The last house we built lasted 200 gingerbread years before needing repair.

1 lb (500g)  icing sugar
1 dessertspoon (10ml) lemon juice
1 dessertspoon (10ml) glycerine (optional, for a soft icing)
2 egg whites

Put half the sifted icing sugar into the mixing bowl and add the egg whites.
Beat (with a mixer)  at SLOW speed thoroughly until very white and smooth
Add the remaining sugar and lemon juice, and glycerine if used
Continue beating until the mixture looks ‘dull’ and very white and peaks form.

Enough to thickly cover a 9 inch diameter cake.

Banana Bread

This originates from Kenya - yet is an American recipe, from the Wycliffe Bible Translation Society cookbook. Spiral bound, the book has been so well used that it has completely lost its cover. It's there, somewhere on the bookshelf. I think.

I can't remember the first time I made this. I suppose it was in Kenya, though I used the courgette cake recipe more frequently, somehow. Odd, when bananas are so ubiquitous in East Africaq. It was rare, though, that bananas survived long enough to become too soft for eating, as they do here in Europe. Here, the bananas we eat are large, solid, fleshy: brash contenders for the name from the Windward Islands (if they come under the Fairtrade label) or elsewhere in the Caribbean if labelled with the global giant, Fyffes...fee, fi, fo fum.  Kenyan bananas were usually finger-sized, sold at the bus terminals and stops in Kisii land in 'hands' of 20 or so, stacked together in flat baskets carried high on heads by small girls. Small, dry, delicious.

So my banana bread seems more European, to me, than Kenyan. This is not the original recipe. I've adapted it for ease and speed - my trademark in cooking.

Banana Bread
Mash 2 -3 bananas.
Beat in 1/3 cup oil, 1- 2 eggs, 1 cup sugar
Add 1 1/2 - 2 cups flour, 1 teaspoon bicarbonate (baking) soda dissolved in 1/4 - 1/2 cup milk or water,
1 teaspoon cinnamon, cloves or nutmeg - or 1 teaspoon mixed spices. Even ginger.

Bake at 180/190 C (350/375) for 30 - 40 minutes.

It's a variable bready cakey thing. It all depends on the ripeness and softness of the bananas.