Stir Up Sunday Christmas Pudding

I rather enjoy tradition. Even more so when it comes to Christmas. As children my brother and I expected to open our stocking on mums bed, eating posh chocolate biscuits for breakfast. Even at 18 years old. Nowadays, I am creating new ones for our little family. For example, Jack and I both LOVE chipolatas wrapped in bacon and feel they are lost alongside the turkey and trimmings. So last year decided to make a feature of them in the Christmas meal with our chipolata starter and dips to whet our appetite for the main event.


That's the beginning covered, but to end our meal this year, I wanted something we could all eat together. A rich fruit pudding that was free from wheat, barley, rye, oats, eggs and dairy is what's required. I can’t imagine creating a Christmas feast for we three and Oliver missing out on my favourite sweet treats - and his first Christmas lunch! So for the first year ever I have made a christmas pudding and it is gluten, egg and dairy free. Our family recipe is laced with stout, breadcrumbs and flour and really doesn’t lend itself to easy adaptation. Luckily I found a great base recipe via BBC Food website. In my usual style I supplemented some of the dried fruits for what I had in the cupboard and on sunday I steamed my pudding for hours after each member of the family had a stir. This new tradition in my home is based on the Christian ritual from the opening prayer for Advent. It called churchgoers to ‘Stir up, we beseech thee, O Lord‘  who then returned home to prepare for Advent with making puddings and mincemeat on what is now known as Stir Up Sunday.

I have to admit I didn't go to church. But I did stir things up a lot since I made my Christmas cake as well - also dairy, egg and gluten free. It now sits along side the maturing pudding waiting for its weekly glug of brandy.

Dairy, Egg and Gluten Free Christmas Pudding 

(based on the BBC Food recipe)

DRY INGREDIENTS:

100g raisins 

100g sultanas 

50g cranberries

50g prunes chopped 

50g dried apricots chopped

25g dried mixed peel 

50g flaked almonds or, if you cannot eat nuts, sunflower seeds 

150g fresh pear, puréed in a food processor, with the skin on 

1 level teaspoon each of ground ginger and cinnamon

25g vegetable or meat suet

2 heaped tsp baking powder

WET INGREDIENTS

100ml apple juice

50ml brandy

FLOUR

50g gram (chickpea) flour

50g rice flour

METHOD

Mix all the dry ingredients together.

Add the wet ingredients to the dry fruit and mix well.

Fold in the flours very thoroughly

Spoon the mixture into a pudding basin and cover with 2 layers of greaseproof paper and secure with string or rubber band,

Put the basin in a deep pan, pour in water to halfway up the bowl, cover the pan tightly and simmer for 4-5 hours, checking the water level periodically.

Remove the basin and allow to cool. Replace the greaseproof paper and store in a cool larder.

To serve re-steam for 1-2 hours or microwave for 3-5 minutes.

Treated like a normal person

Being a "celariac" (something I often get called when eating out and people are unfamiliar with the word Coeliac) one of the unexpected difficulties of living gluten free comes when friends invite you for dinner.


Most of my closest friends are confident cooks, happy to grill me about ingredients they plan to cook. However I have been served starters on toast and gluten-ous sausages even after explicit instructions, but luckily I have a beady eye for gluten contamination and am now quite comfortable asking to see packaging or recipes. But it took a while to get there, especially since I have always been the kind of guest to eat what is put in front of me, proud of my ability to eating literally anything. I never like to make a fuss...


For New Years Eve this year, we were invited to a friends house party to welcome in 2010. They are aware and sympathetic of my condition, but are not my most foodie friends and are often a little stumped at what to feed me. So you can imagine my excitement, relief and sheer joy when we arrived to a completely gluten free feast.


They had raided the Free From aisle of the supermarket collecting GF pitta breads, lasagne sheets and rolls. Checked the ingredients of hummus and dips, put my GF dippers in distinctive bowl, even cooked them on brand new baking trays. And then came the piece de resistance... Gluten free lasagne.


Inspired by a Coeliac family friend over Christmas, they created a lamb mince, a Jamie Oliver inspired white sauce from crème fraiche, cream and a tonne of Parmesan and layered it with the free from pasta. Salads on the side and GF rolls to mop up the juice I tucked into Lasagne for the first time since I was diagnosed. Delicious.


This was followed by cheese (and some incredible vintage port that we supplied) which was accompanied by  conference pears for me as a much tastier cracker replacement. "The free from crackers all have funny seasonings on them" said our dear host "why would you want that when you want to taste the cheese". I couldn't agree more!


It was a really lovely way to end our awesome year and a truly positive way to begin 2010. Such a treat to be able to eat the same as other party guests... and easier for the hosts too. How do you cope with eating at friends houses with a special diet?


You may also enjoy reading:
How to eat out
Eating out with a special diet

Perfect gluten free fruit cake

David Lebovitz is one of my food heros, a devotee to everything sweet and Parisian always bringing something new to the blogsphere. Recently he posted a recipe for Fruitcake bars and with Christmas looming and a deficit of gluten free Christmas goodies, I reviewed the recipe to see if I could adapt it, and it only contained a little bit of flour.

I love baking in the run up to Christmas, and with in-laws descending this weekend it was the perfect excuse to try out the recipe. With a little tweaking to allow for the ultra absorbant gluten free flour, this was such an easy, successful cake to bake. Perfect for Christmas and flexible enough to accommodate the fruit and nuts you have at hand, get the oven on!

Based on David Lebovit's Fruitcake Bar
Ingredients
4tbsp gluten free flour
2 tbsp golden caster sugar
4 tbsp dark brown sugar
170g chopped dried fruit (dates, prunes, figs)
170g chopped dried apricots
200g roasted and chopped nuts (I used walnuts and almonds)
1/4 tsp gluten free baking powder
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1 large egg beaten

Method
Line a square 20cm tin with a cross of foil, folding it over the edges so that you can lift out the cake after cooking. Preheat the oven to 160degrees c.

Mix together the flour, baking powder, salt, cinammon, sugars, nuts and fruits using your hands to seperate the fruit with flour.

Add the beaten egg and mix until the fruit and nuts are covered in a batter.

Spread into the cake tin and smooth the top. Bake for 35-40 min until a skewer comes out of the cake clean. Leave in the tin to cool and lift out using the foil.

With a sharp, heavy knife, cut into bars (or slabs in our house). Keep in an airtight containter for up to a week at room temperature.

You may also enjoy reading:

My first Chrsitmas cake

Essential gluten free baking equipment

My First Gluten Free Christmas

Christmas is a surprisingly gluten infested feast – bread sauce for the turkey, Christmas Pudding, Christmas Cake, Mince Pies, chipolatas, Yule log, trifle, blinis for the smoked salmon starter ...even the childhood stocking regular (and breakfast) of Cadbury’s selection packs are a no go these days. But, not one to miss out on the festivities, I spent much of November and December researching gluten free goodies to make and buy.

To those new to gluten free Christmas, the wonderful Village Bakery produce a range of festive foods produced in a dedicated gluten free facility. However, having severely got the baking bug, I wanted to start making my own.

As a child, as early as October, my mother would be found making enough Christmas puddings for the whole neighbourhood in the washing up bowl as there was never a bowl big enough for the all the mixture. We would only ever eat one of them over Christmas. The rest would be stored and matured for next year, when they would be discovered as the next batch was being put away for maturing.


My Mother also made the Christmas cake, maturing it and feeding it's boozy diet of brandy, then covered the alcohol laced cake in marzipan and icing. My brother and I would invariably be present for this final stage, to sneak the 'leftover' marzipan and provide artistic direction for the decorating. Every year, mum was determined to use the plastic snowman, Merry Christmas sign and paper ruffle – but I always wanted to replicate the BBC Good Food Magazine creation of that year.

So this year, with the opportunity to eat as much marzipan without a slapped wrist, I found a recipe for gluten free Christmas Cake. It comes from Good HouseKeeping Magazine and I just swapped the 250g of flour for 200g of ground almonds and 40g of gluten free plain flour - as I find it is much more absorbent than wheat flour.


Covered in marzipan and ready to roll icing (after mums rock hard icing incident, I don't plan to make my own!) the decoration was to be saved for Christmas Eve when Mum was arriving at our house, bringing with her 'the tin'. In a moment of nostalgia, when excitedly telling Mum about my gluten free baking triumph, she asked how I was decorating it. I had used all the icing with enough left over for a small snowman, and she jokingly offered her decorations. I accepted hoping for a comedy cake moment on Christmas day when unveiling it to my brother...


But she forgot 'the tin'...


At this point on Christmas Eve, having used every inch of ribbon in the house, the only decoration left was my little snowman, and black ribbon. Not very festive, but minimalistic...

Gluten Free Christmas Cake
You need:
500g sultanas and raisins
250g Agen prunes roughly chopped
100g dried sour cherries
150ml Brandy or Armagnac
Finely grated zest and juice of 1 lemon and 1 orange
100g molasses sugar
150g dark brown sugar
250g pack of unsalted butter at room temp, plus extra for greasing
4 large free range eggs
200g ground almonds
40g gluten free plain flour
1tbsp black treacle
1.5 tsp mixed spice
Half tsp ground ginger
Pinch of salt

23cm cake tin
Brown paper and string

To make it...

Soak all the fruit in a non-metallic bowl in the Brandy, citrus zests and juices, covered overnight.

Next day, preheat oven to 150degrees C and grease and line the cake tin.

Beat the sugar and butter in a large bowl with an electric beater until light and fluffy.

Beat in the eggs a little at a time to make sure that it doesn't curdle. If it starts to curdle, add a little flour. Beat in the black treacle.

Sift the flour, spices and a pinch of salt into the mixture and fold with a metal spoon.

Fold in the soaked fruit and tip the mixture into the prepare tin and level the surface.

Wrap a double layer of brown paper around the outside of the tin to prevent the sides of the cake from burning.

Bake for 3-3.5 hours until the skewer comes out clean.

TIP - put a tray under the cake as the oil from the almonds can leak a little, and next year I may up the the flour and reduce the almonds...

Leave the cake in the tin for about 10mins, then turn it out to cool on the rack.

Keep the cake in the greaseproof paper, wrap in cling film, then foil and store in an airtight container.

After 2weeks of maturing, prick the cake all over with a skewer and drizzle over about a tablespoon of brandy. Leave to soak then store as before.

Marzipan and ice the cake as per the instructions on the pack...decorate.

The cake will keep for up to 3months.