I am late in getting started with Christmas plans ... nothing new there! But others are well under way with their 'advent calendar' blogs, where writers post every day during the build up to Christmas, often adding images to text, so that each entry is like opening a window in an advent calendar. I particularly enjoy Needled - beautiful evocative photos and well-chosen, sometimes sparse, words. Too late for me to join in properly now but I'm going to try to do my own 12 Days of Christmas between Christmas and New Year. In the meantime, here are my Xmas Puds waiting to go into the slow cooker for their first steaming...
Better late than never...
The recipe I used is the Empire Christmas Pudding from 1927. I was teaching my Year 9 class a lesson about 'What can we learn about the British Empire from a Christmas Pudding' using material from the linked article. We learnt how the Empire Marketing Board published the recipe to encourage people to buy produce from the Empire. Lots of the pupils went away saying they were going to try out the recipe and so I though I would, too! It seems pleasantly rich in fruit and there is a reassuring amount of booze required (rum, brandy and beer to ensure that all corners of the Empire were included). All at home stirred up and wished. Christmas cake is also in the oven today - more conventionally Delia Smith's recipe.
