• 350 grams mixed fruit (raisins, sultanas, currents)
• 1 cup of sugar
• 1 cup of water
• 3 x 5 mls spoon mixed spice (5ml is a teaspoon)
• 1 x 2.5 ml spoon salt
• 160 grams butter or margarine
• 1 egg
• 1 1/4 cup self-raising flour (155 g)
• 1 1/4 cup plain flour (155 g)
• 1 x 5 ml spoon baking soda
• 10 ml hot water (10ml is 2 teaspoons)
• 10 ml rum (optional)

1. Place all mixed fruit, sugar, water, spice, salt and butter in saucepan
2. Allow to boil for ten minutes
3. Allow to cool
4. Beat egg and add to the mixture
5. Fold in sifted flours, dissolved soda and rum (rum optional)
6. Mix well together then pour into a damp cloth lined mixing bowl and tie the pudding into a ball. Use a thick string and tie it as tight as you can. Might need a couple of people. Tie around a few times and then leave enough string for hanging later.
7. Boil for 2 hours. Keep a running boil....and always keep the water level above the pudding...so keep kettle on the boil and keep refilling pot as it steams down. The string needs to be durable enough to hold the weight of the pudding.
8. Once it has boiled for about 2 hours, then remove carefully by the string. Someone needs to help hold the pudding until it steams dry for a few minutes and stops dripping water.
9. Use the string to hang the pudding ball in coat closet from a wooden coat hanger. Allow to hang for a few days while it sets its shape and fruit flavor. If yours looks like a shrunken head, you're on the right track. Be careful it does not drop since it will crack and crumble to pieces.
10. On Christmas Eve, reboil the pudding while you are having your Christmas dinner. Easiest dessert in the world! Once you take the pudding out of the boiling water this time, carefully put the pudding on a plate and cut the string off. Then carefully roll back the cloth and peel slowly so you do not pull pudding apart. Once you have some of the cloth pulled back, put a plate on where you just peeled back the cloth and use the two plates (one on the bottom and one on the top) to flip the pudding over....so the top is the bottom....then peel off the rest of the cloth carefully...so it leaves a slight skin to the pudding.

Alternative to boiling: If you just want a traditional Christmas fruit cake, instead of #6, 7, 8, 9 and 10, you can just pour ingredients into a greased tin and bake slowly for 1 1/5 hours. The cake will rise, so the tin should have a waxed paper lining on the sides which should stand a couple of inches above the tin all the way around.

Make the thick Bird's custard in advance. Remember to stir it constantly so it does not burn. This will then be served thick, hot, and smothered all over the pudding...along with plastic holly in the middle as decoration. Typically served before cutting.

It is even better the next day as leftovers!!!

I typically double the ingredients...so you have a larger pudding...or do two at a time in different pots...one for kids table and one for adults table. Sometimes if the pudding is too big, it will fall apart under its own weight (still good, just not as pretty!).

If you like the Christmas pudding, other very traditional kids birthday party treats are Lamingtons (or Lamies for short....describing the thousands of sheep we have in Australia or New Zealand), Coconut Ice, and Chocolate Crackles. Naturally, the Aussies have a killer scone recipe and our national cookie, or rather biscuit, is the Anzac. Another Christmas favorite is also something we call White Christmas!

If you want those recipes, please contact MLS and I would be happy to post them in my blog.

Until then, gidday mates!