Frances Bissell's Low-fat Christmas Pudding

The tradition is that every member of the family stirs the pudding mixture while making a wish.... Bissell/Levy suggest serving this with crème fraîche, rather than the traditional brandy butter
== Ingredients ==
* 230 g (8 oz, 4 loosely packed cups) fresh wholemeal breadcrumbs
* 230 g (8 oz, 2 cups) each of roughly chopped muscatel (black) raisins, sultanas (yellow raisins) and dried apricots
* 60 g (2 oz, ¾ cup) crumbled almond macaroons or amaretti
* 60 g (2 oz, ¾ cup) chopped almonds
* 60 g (2 oz, ½ cup) ground or flaked almonds
* 1 grated apple
* 1 tbsp grated orange zest
* 1 tsp ground cinnamon
* 1 tsp ground mace
* ½ tsp ground cardamom
* ½ tsp ground cloves
* ½ tsp ground allspice
* 2 tbsp orange marmalade or candied orange peel
* juice of 1 orange
* 4 medium free-range eggs
* 6 tbsp or 1 miniature bottle of cognac
* 140 ml (5 fl oz, scant ⅔ cup) fortified muscat wine, port marsala or rich Oloroso sherry
== Directions ==
# Put all the dry ingredients in a large bowl and mix thoroughly.
# Put the marmalade, orange juice, eggs, brandy and wine in another large bowl, or in the blender or food processor, and beat until well blended and frothy.
# Pour the liquid over the dry ingredients.
# Mix until moist.
# Cover, and let stand for a couple of hours at least and, if possible, overnight to let the spice flavours develop.
# oil or butter the pudding basin and spoon in the mixture.
# As it contains no raw flour, it will not expand very much during the cooking, so you can fill the basin to within 1.25 cm (½ inch) of the rim.
# Take a square of greaseproof or waxed paper, oil or butter it, and tie it over the top of the basin with string.
# Steam in boiling water for 5 hours.
# Allow pudding to cool completely before wrapping it, still in its basin, in fresh greaseproof paper plus a layer of foil.
# Store in a cool dark place.
# On Christmas Day, steam for a further two hours.
Category:Christmas Desserts
Category:Holiday pudding Recipes
Category:Low-fat Recipes
Category:Low-calorie Recipes
Category:Almond Recipes
Category:Dried apricot Recipes
Category:Golden raisin Recipes
Category:Marmalade Recipes
Category:Breadcrumb Recipes
Category:Apple Recipes
Category:Egg Recipes
Category:Orange juice Recipes
Category:Orange peel Recipes
Category:Marsala Recipes
Category:Cognac Recipes
Category:Sherry Recipes
Category:Port Recipes