The best Christmas pudding recipe I know requires suet; either beef or vegetable suet will do. Has anyone seen suet here? I really need it for this weekend so specialist stores in Taipei are out.
Does anyone know the pinyin for suet?
Alternatively, has anyone tried making suet-free Xmas pud? This link; deliasmith.co.uk/deliaatlife … &topicid=8
contains the suggestion to use frozen butter mixed with flour, or there’s a suet-free pud recipe here; templepatrick.connor.anglican.org/Xmas/Xhome.htm
As I want to make a large batch of puddings, a second opinion would be useful!
Thanks in advance.
I have used the frozen butter/flour method, although not for Christmas pud, and the results were good. Just remember to really freeze the butter hard and grate and work in the flour as quickly as you can. You might need to freeze, grate, freeze again, start working in the flour, freeze, work in more flour, etc. Its also good to do it in a metal bowl set in a basin of iced water. Be patient, use a fork, not your hands (if you must use your hands, stick 'em in the iced water and chill them down frequently).
I did this for a steak & kidney pudding, which has a plain suet crust, so it would have been really obvious if it hadn’t worked properly.
BTW, the butter should be unsalted.
Or maybe the Fingas guy can turn you on to some suet.
The older the better, you’re right. But a few days should be OK for a reasonable pud. Of course it has brandy as one of the ingredients, which may be one of the things that helps it keep so long.
Thanks for the advice, Sandman; I’m very tempted to try that suet-free recipe from the Anglican website, though, as it looks nice and would save a lot of hassle grating butter. (I want to make a lot of puddings.) My mum told me last night that the reason for including suet is not to bind the pudding together as I thought - the egg should do that - but to make it lighter. As the Anglican pudding uses only breadcrumhs and no flour I hope that it might be light enough anyway.