The holiday period can get so chaotic that even the most important things — like a Christmas dessert — get forgotten. As a staunch pre-planner (I love a list), I’m fond of curating my Christmas plans months in advance. But this year, I forgot arguably the most important thing (here in the U.K. at least): Christmas Pudding.
For those who aren’t familiar with the delicacy that is Christmas Pudding, it’s basically a traditional English dessert made with raisins, currants, orange peel, and spices. Usually doused liberally in brandy and served flaming, and always brought out alongside custard or cream. Oh, and it takes up to six months to make properly.
Why does it take so long, I hear you ask? You basically have to ‘feed’ the pud with sips of brandy from June to December, to help preserve it and also ensure it goes up in flames when lit. When I think about the concept of ‘feeding’ a Christmas Pudding, I can’t help but imagine a secret kitchen goblin stealing sips of dad’s special occasion brandy in the run-up to the big day.
I’m an unfortunate mixture of lazy and forgetful. Actually, no, I’m not lazy, I’m merely of the mindset that why should I do extra work if the shortcut achieves the same result? And I’m not forgetful, I’m merely… discerning with my to-do lists.
So this year, I had to simplify the Christmas Pudding-making process with the help of my trusty Instant Pot. Let’s get into it.
Instant Pot Christmas Pudding
Prep ingredients
I followed this BBC Good Food ‘Easy Christmas Pudding’ recipe exactly. I combined orange juiced-soaked raisins and sultanas, flour, breadcrumbs, spices, butter, and chopped almonds and mixed well. Then I added milk and an egg and combined again. After combining, I added a little more cinnamon because I’m a cinnamon fiend.
Prepare Instant Pot
The recipe called for a pudding dish, but I didn’t have one, so I fashioned my own out of non-slip parchment paper. It’s not the prettiest, but it did the trick — and who’s going to care that their Christmas Pudding is a little ugly when they’re 10 glasses of Baileys down? Make sure to put the Instant Pot trivet under the parchment paper to prevent sticking.
Fill Instant Pot
The penultimate hands-on step was to pour the batter into the parchment paper pudding dish. I was careful not to let any batter drip down the sides.
Set up Instant Pot
You have to be quite particular about this step — I’m all too familiar with Instant Pot’s dreaded ‘Food burn’ warning. I poured about 6 ounces of water in the base of the pot and set the trivet (which comes with your Instant Pot) on top. Then I put the aforementioned parchment paper bowl on top and poured the batter in.
Cook!
I put the pudding on for 24 minutes (12 minutes twice) on ‘pressure cook’ with natural venting. Then I let it rest in the pot for about an hour to cool and harden. Take a look at this delicious pudding!
As soon as I took my first bite, I swear my eyes rolled back in my head. "Yep, that’s Christmas Pudding," I thought, and promptly devoured the entire slice with a healthy drizzle of cream.
Sure, the flavor wasn’t as developed as a homemade 6-month matured pudding, but would anyone expect that? For a last minute on the fly dessert, this was an absolute killer. 10/10 would recommend.
