Avalon Authors

After reading a post on Risky Regencies last week about Christmas Pudding . . . microwaved Christmas pudding . . . I was inspired to try the recipe for myself.

The directions looked simple enough even I could follow them. What I imagined was the picture on the left. What I was expecting was the more modern looking picture on the right.

What I really thought I'd get was . . .

I was expecting company on Tuesday night (Dec 13th) and thought I'd use them as guinea pigs lucky participants of my English epicurean delight.

A half hour before they arrive I gather the ingredients. I'd jotted them on a notepad and did a quick, guesstimate conversion of grams/milliliters to ounces from the computer.

I melted the butter and mixed in the dark brown sugar. The soft, fluffy breadcrumbs were folded in with the allspice and flour. I'm amazed how little flour was needed.

Next the raisins, dried currents, chopped dates, peel, and candied cherries were mixed in. It didn't look much like cake-like batter to me.

The liquids, which I'm not going to show, were mixed in.

It all went into a large Pyrex mixing bowl and microwaved for ten minutes. At the end of the cooking time there was a heavenly smell coming from the microwave oven.

This is what we got. You must add the warmed brandy and light it for the blue flame.

It occurred to me the pudding might be a bit dense and I thought a cream sauce would be a good idea. I Google-ed a recipe.

It took five minutes for milk, cream, sugar, egg yolks, and seeds from a split vanilla pod to create this lovely custard.

A few spoonfuls of this loveliness over a warm slice of Christmas pudding was just the thing.

The Christmas pudding was more delicious than I ever expected. The family, and company, enjoyed this so much I'm willing to give the traditional method a try.

Yes, this will appear in a future Gentlemen of Worth series book.