CHRISTMAS PUDDING LIQUEUR RECIPES

Steps:

• Preheat the oven to 150°C.
• Scald the sultanas and currants and drain in a sieve. Finely chop the prunes and mix with the sultanas, currants and rum. Peel, quarter, core and finely grate the apple. Add to the rum-soaked fruit with the finely chopped candied peel. Add the soft butter, breadcrumbs, flour, nuts, sugar, eggs, black treacle, cloves and cinnamon and stir well. Turn into a buttered pudding basin, cover with a lid or with a piece of pleated greaseproof paper and a piece of pleated aluminium foil and tie with string. Place on a rack (to ensure even cooking) in a tray or dish of boiling water and oven steam for 4 - 5 hours. Leave to cool, then rewrap in clean greaseproof paper and foil and store in a cool place until required. Before serving, steam for 2 hours and serve hot. Flambé with rum or brandy, if you wish.
• For the orange cream, mix the orange juice with the sugar and boil until reduced to about a quarter of the original volume. Leave to cool and stir in the liqueur. Whip the cream until stiff and fold in. Serve with the Christmas pudding.

Steps:

• Sterilise a large, 1.3 litre (2¼pint) bottle or glass container, either by running through a dishwasher cycle or washing in hot soapy water, rinsing, then drying on a baking tray in the oven for 20min at 150°C (130°C fan) mark 2.

  Combine all the ingredients in a large bowl or jug and put into the sterilised container or bottle. Seal with a cork or screw cap.

  Leave for two weeks in a cool, dark place, turning the container occasionally to agitate the ingredients.

  Use a funnel lined with a coffee filter paper to decant the liquid into pretty sterilised bottles of your choice. Add a fresh piece of lemon and orange peel and a fresh cinnamon stick, then cap.