Not-as-good-as-last-year’s Christmas pudding

(From Johanna Knox)

Makes two good-sized puddings – one for your family, and one to give away.

This pudding recipe has travelled down at least five generations. My great-great grandmother made it; perhaps it goes back further.

Each generation adapted it or added to it. BUT the vital secret ingredient for 70 years or more has been that you must, at some point, say, ‘I’m sure it isn’t as good as last year’s.’

How this tradition came to be, no one now knows, though I wonder if it began with my grandmother (left), who was of a very anxious disposition.

Family members are divided over whether you say it when tasting the batter, or as you’re serving it cooked. But whichever way, it’s imperative.

Ingredients:

1 pound butter

¾ pound sugar

1 ¼ pounds flour

1 ½ teaspoons baking soda

¼ pound slivered or chopped almonds

¼ pound peel

1 packet crystallised ginger (chop if big bits)

1 packet raisins

1 ½ pounds dates, chopped

½ pound currants

1 – 1 ½ pounds sultanas

¼ pound ground almonds

8 eggs

1 dessertspoon full of golden syrup

A wine glass of brandy

Vanilla and almond essence to taste

Prepare two large squares of unbleached calico: wash or boil ahead of time to get any filler out, and dry.

Method:

Cut up butter into small pieces and use fingers to rub in sugar, flour and baking soda.

Mix together well: almonds, peel, crystallised ginger, raisins, dates, currants, sultanas, and ground almonds. Stir these into the rubbed butter mix.

In a separate bowl, mix eggs, golden syrup, brandy, vanilla essence and almond essence.

Pour liquid ingredients into dry ingredients and mix well,

Flour the calicao squares very well, rubbing flour into and in between the fibres.

Dump half the pudding mix into the middle of one cloth, and tie it up in a bundle – with string or a strip of cloth, leaving a little space for expansion at the top.  The string should be tied very tightly. Make a loop for removing the pudding later.

Do the same with the other half of the pudding mix – into the second square of calico.

Fill a stockpot half full of water, with an old plate in the bottom of the pot to prevent burning.

Bring to the boil. Put in one pudding.

Boil for 6 hours, topping up the water when necessary and keeping it on a gentle boil all the time. (The pudding will float so you won’t ever get the water completely covering it.)

After 6 hours, remove pudding from still-boiling water and hang it.

Repeat with the second pudding, or if you have two stockpots, do them at the same time.

Hang puddings for a week or more.

To serve:

On the day of serving, retie the pudding as it will have shrunk, and don’t leave any expansion space at the top – retie it close to the pudding.

Reboil for an hour or more.

Take it out of the calico and put it on a plate. Pour warmed brandy over (about a quarter to half a cup) and set alight before bringing to table.

Serve with brandy sauce and whipped cream.

There will be a white crust on the outside, which traditionally most of the family likes when hot, but if leftovers are served later cold, they remove the crust.

When cold it’s nice with golden syrup.

Aunty Jean's Christmas Pie

(from Mary Knox)


My mother's sister Jean Owen was perhaps the loveliest person I've ever known - gentle, kind and gracious.

When our daughters were little we spent a Christmas season in Montreal, and I remember Auntie Jean saying she would make a "Christmas Pie" for a special lunch. We had no idea what this would be, though later I realised I had seen Auntie Jean knitting unobtrusively for a while ...

Anyway, on the lunch table was a cake-shaped decoration made of cardboard and paper, with ribbons radiating from it, each going to a place with a child's name attached. When they were told to, each child slowly pulled the ribbon, and drew from inside the pie a little gift. The girls each got a tiny doll with knitted nightie and sleeping bag.

That was typical of Auntie Jean's thoughtfulness. She was a good cook too, but that's another story.

                         

  Jean Owen in 1964

Whisky Log

(from Emma Levy)

This dessert is another Danielle Levy masterpiece, and I actually don't have words for how divine it is.  Now that I think about it, it's possible I was underage when I was eating it.  What I remember best about it (it's been a long time in between tastings) is that I would get a cake fork and take just a minute amount, because it was SO rich - and this is when I was young, when really nothing is too rich, so who knows what trying it in one's mid-forties would be like!!  It was one of the dinner party regulars - how I miss the dinner party days.  My parents threw a lot of dinner parties and I would sit at the top of the stairs in my pjs, instead of being asleep in bed, listening to the chatter and the laughter, wishing I could go down there and be with them....  This is not a recipe you'll use as an everyday one, but give it a go as a special treat.  You won't regret it!

Ingredients
1 packet Wine Biscuits (plain sweet biscuit)
120 g Butter (softened)
1 Egg
1 cup Icing Sugar
½ cup Whisky

Icing
180 g Icing Sugar
1 Tbsp Cocoa
120 g Butter (softened)
1 tsp Coffee


Directions
1.    Cream butter and icing sugar.
2.    Add egg, crushed biscuits, and whisky.
3.    Mix well.
4.    Put in fridge for 1 hour to firm a little.
5.    Shape into a log on grease-proof paper and roll it in the paper.
6.    Chill the log in the fridge for 4-6 hours.
7.    Mix icing ingredients.
8.    Once log is firm, unwrap from paper and ice with icing. 

This log is best served chilled.

A photo of my mum, not sure at what age, but when I first saw 

it I thought it was me - now that was a weird experience!!

It's Jewish New Year - time for a piece of honey cake (or two!)

(from Nicki Levy)


Rosh Hashanah Honey Cake (Temple Sinai Bulletin)

3 eggs

1 cup sugar

1 cup oil

1 cup honey

3 tablespoons cocoa

2 ½ cup flour

1 teaspoo bicarb of soda

1 Granny Smith apple (opt)

1 cup boiling tea

Grate apple if using (Mum says use it!). Combine all ingredients  in order listed, mixing well. Pour into large, well greased tin. Bake at 160C for 1 ¼-1 ½ hours.

Jewish New Year Honey Cake

When Mum died in 2004 , I asked Adam and Emma if I could take Mum’s recipe books. Mum had (like I do too) collected recipes from magazines, newspapers but, most interestingly, her friends, Carole Charles, Maureen Baruch, Barbara Treister, Sandy Myers (oh, and Alison Holst of course). She always credited them next to the recipe.

There are quite a few recipes in my own child’s hand-writing that Mum must have asked me to write out – or maybe because they were recipes I wanted her to make – anyone that knows me won’t be surprised that on one page I have written out the recipes for Chocolate Fudge and Chocolate Blancmange.

I love to flick through and find recipes she made regularly, like Chocolate Crunch, which I think Emma and I had as our nutritional afternoon tea when we got home from school most days. I try not to think about the half pound of butter that went into it!

But the best thing about the recipe book is at the back where in the early 1970s she listed menus for her dinner parties and who attended. On 15 May 1971 (when she had three children under the age of five) she lists: Entrée - pancakes filled with smoked salmon & cheese/mushrooms & cheese. Main - Argentinian Steak, Mushrooms a la Greque, Tossed Salad, Cauliflower Gratin, Baked Potatoes. Dessert - Cheesecake with Boysenberry Topping. Those that were lucky enough to enjoy this feast were the Baruchs, the Hyams, the Brickmans and the Myers.

The honey cake recipe is probably not the one we grew up with as it came from the Temple Sinai bulletin. Mum only joined the Temple after Dad died, probably in the 90s. I accidentally left out the cup of tea when I made this yesterday and I’ve never had so many compliments on the cake. Try it with and without! Bon appetit and Shana Tova!