Many people in England every Christmas would serve pudding to their family, a tradition handed down from one generation to another. The pudding making started during the medieval times.
Pudding, plum duff or plum pudding is a delicious food that is prepared before Christmas and served on December 25 as customary in England. Take note, pudding may be a traditional food but it does not mean that the recipe is just only one, as many household prepare their own pudding differently.
In fact, the recipe of pudding depends on the household that is making it but nonetheless, the ingredients are still notably sweet spices, expensive and distinctive to create the rich aroma and delicious taste that made this Christmas cake popular and a part of English tradition.
If you have not seen a pudding before, you will instantly recognize it because of its dark appearance that is due to the black treacle, dark sugars and longer cooking time. The distinctive aroma is mainly because of the mixture of brandy or wine and citrus fruit juice. By the way, some pudding recipes require the use of dark beers like porter or mild stout rather than brandy.
Christmas pudding as some people call it usually boiled using a pudding cloth before the 19th century, so more often than not the shape of the pudding is round. However, as time passed by, cooking has also evolved and so pudding are also steamed and not just boiled.
The steaming of pudding can take hours, so using a pressure cooker is more common nowadays to shorten the timeframe and prevent quality loss. Reheating the pudding is also possible with steaming it, as long as a brand is added to ensure the flavor is still intact.
Many people had made effort to make the English pudding even more presentable during Christmas so some place sprig on the top as decoration. These days, puddings are served differently, some place sauce to make it even more delicious and also accompaniments are added as well as compliment. Pudding is best eaten with brandy butter, cream, rumbutter, hard sauce, custard or béchamel that has been sweetened, lemon cream and even caster sugar.
So, what is a pudding? It is a delicious dessert prepared and eaten by the English during Christmas. Pudding is simply a traditional food cooked and served on December 25 in every home in England.