This may not be a traditional Christmas pudding, but when I found it in Mum’s recipe book I couldn’t resist adding it in. It’s an old fashioned sago pudding, nice as is, but I think adding some extra fruit would put it in the Christmas pudding category.
This is a much older recipe and is probably the one that Mum would have used when she made the pudding in the cloth. It doesn’t have brandy or sherry in it, but if you wanted a richer pudding it wouldn’t hurt to add it. It has less fruit in it than Recipe No 1, so would make a smaller pudding.
I’m guessing, like everyone else out there, I’m finally admitting that Christmas is closing in on us and it’s time to start the lists and the Christmas cooking. So this weekend I’m making our Christmas pudding. As it’s going to be a lovely family day I’ve decided to make the traditional pudding that Mum made for many years. When I was a child she made a pudding in a cloth, but in latter years she made this one in her pudding bowl, covering the top of the mixture with greaseproof paper and then foil and tying it off with string. I still use her technique of making a string handle to lay across the top so that you can take the hot pudding from the boiling water more easily. This makes a large pudding for 12, but you can halve the recipe if you want to. I always make the large one and freeze any leftovers to be enjoyed later on.
Posting last week’s recipe for the Hot Chicken & Asparagus Roll started me thinking about Mum’s recipes for homemade pastry. The first one that came to mind was one that I’ve used many times. At some stage I must have gotten the recipe from Mum and typed it up, it appears in my recipe folder as ‘Biscuit Pastry’ I’m not quite sure why as I’ve always used it as a sweet pie or tart base. It is really good with lemon meringue pie and lemon tart .
Looking through Mum’s handwritten recipes I found these three oldies as well.
PASTRY FOR PASTIES
The family loved homemade pasties. Mum would have made the pastry, rolled it out, cut it into circle shapes, (probably using a bread and butter plate or a saucer as a template) filled them with finely chopped steak, onions and potato and then folded them over and sealed them.
Pastry recipe:
QUICK PASTRY
I’m not completely sure what Mum used this for, but I like the simplicity of just using flour and cream to make the dough.
ROUGH PASTE
I always thought Rough Pastry was a form of puff pastry, but this recipe seems to be something else again, maybe the rough just means that it’s easy to make? It should have a lovely butter flavour though and now I’ve found it I’ll have to give it a try myself to how it works.
Using tinned salmon or tuna to make a mornay or bake seems to have gone quite out of fashion. When I was growing up Mum often made easy Sunday night dinners using either one. Although this is a later recipe it is pretty typical of the sort of thing she would make.
This recipe comes from the back of the Pampas Ready Rolled Puff Pastry pack. Originally Mum had to hand make any pastry she used, so the advent of prepared pastry was almost as good as sliced bread. The first type of prepared pastry came in a block and still needed rolling out which was a bit of a chore, then someone had the great idea of ready rolled sheets and using pastry became a lot easier.
The old no bake slices were a quick and easy way to make something sweet for the family or visitors, especially in summer when you didn’t want to heat up the kitchen by using the oven. This one uses condensed milk and Marie biscuits and has flaked almonds on the top. If the almonds are a problem for you I’m sure you could use dried fruits or even choc chips instead.
I’ve no idea why this is called a cake, if anything the finished dish looks more like a pudding as it has a lovely brown crust on top. It makes an economical family meal that tastes great.
BAKED STEAK CAKE
Topping
In a basin, place the meat, bacon, onion, cheese, sauces and seasonings. Mix and spread evenly in a 20cm x 20cm casserole dish. Pour topping over meat and bake at 180º for 1 hour until top is set and browned. Cut into squares and serve with mashed potatoes and buttered spinach or other green vegetable.
For topping – sift dry ingredients into a basin. Make a well in the centre and add beaten eggs, milk, melted butter, cheese and parsley. Mix and beat until smooth.
Mum made lots of different types of fruit cakes, loaves and slices and adding pumpkin to the mix wasn’t that unusual. The only unusual ingredient in this recipe is the apricot nectar, not something that you’d normally put in a fruit cake and not something you’d usually have in your cupboard. If you wanted to you could easily substitute it with fruit juice or water.
A favourite family dessert was always Bread & Butter Pudding served with cream, this recipe is an updated version of that using croissants and blueberries. Mum cut this out of the Herald Sun, but I’m not really sure if she ever actually made it, I suspect she stuck to her well loved version.
Beb's Recipe Drawer 