Roll poly pudding

[Pukka Bundook]

Dave,

These days, we usually put a glass of brandy into the cake when making. Well, grandma and mother did so maybe not Just "these days"!

Christmas pudding gets the rum over the top and lit....

 

[tenngun]

Very good, Dave.

Some folk use flour on the outside of the pudding cloth, to keep pudding 'dry'.
Very important to drop it in Boiling water, (As you say above) as this sets the cloth and stops water soaking into the pudding.
Brandy sauce also Good!

You can make up the pudding style you like and break in to egg sized balls and boil them about half an hour. Called Puddings in a haste in the old days, dumplings sans chemical levin. In the field ships bread( hard tack) raisins nutmeg salt and suet ( I use butter) break the bread up to meal, add the other ingredients until you get stiff paste and spoon in to boiling water. Boil about a half hour.
Puddings in a haste should not be confused with hasty pudding... or cornmeal mush.

 

[Loyalist Dave]

These days, we usually put a glass of brandy into the cake when making. Well, grandma and mother did so maybe not Just "these days"!

Christmas pudding gets the rum over the top and lit...

Ah but as an ingredient the alcohol gets boiled/baked/steamed off, and as part of the Christmas pudding it's a Flambé.... what I'm talking about is rum soaked finished product that is then put into a tin and shipped....hence the need for the rum. AKA Caribbean "black cake" or English fruit cake.

LD

 

[Pukka Bundook]

Dave,
Yep.
Ours never lived long enough to think of it keeping well, so worked well done the other way.
Mind, mother used to send a Christmas cake each year to her brother in England, and it took near as long to arrive as if it'd been sent under sail! (March, once with Nov. postage!)

 

[Loyalist Dave]

Imagine what it was when sailing ships took fruitcake to Australia from England

LD

 

[Pukka Bundook]

Probably about the same as it takes now, Dave! LOL.