Recipes

So you can pressure cook everything, right? Having left it until the last minute, and not wanting to traditionally steam a Christmas pudding for many hours (because climate change), I’m trying a pressure-cooker version.

A little bit of research, mash up, and hopefulness, suggests that a base recipe aiming for the proportions:

• 3 cups dried fruit
• 2 cups flour (or 1 cup flour, 1 cup breadcrumbs) + 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 cup liquid (water, rum, strong tea, stout, coffee, orange juice)
• 1 cup oil
• 1 cup sugar (sometimes including molasses to get it dark)
• 1 egg or more
• spices and other flavours such as fresh peel, vanilla and burnt caramel (Parisian essence)

Might make a reasonable pudding. Some of the sites I looked at:

• olive oil cake. Suggests that olive oil could work instead of butter or other fats.
• bbc pudding, pressure cooked. I guess a classic recipe, and the volumes above are mainly from this one – which was said to result in a 6 cup mold recipe.
• another pressure cooked recipe. Gave slightly longer cooking times.
• My mum’s recipe for fruit cake. The reference to the proportions that I know.
• A bunch of other Jamaican recipes. To explore how they make their cakes so dark.
• A prize-winning fruit cake recipe. Ok, so the secret ingredient is time… particularly, time soaking the fruit. I can’t quite replicate that at short notice, but given many puddings don’t even soak, I think I might get away with soaking only for a few days.

My first attempts:

• Soak for a few days (to a few months)… * see note below
  • zest from 1/4 orange, 1/4 lemon, and 1/4 lime, candied in 1/3 sugar
  • 3 cups dried fruit (sultanas, raisins, currants, prunes, candied ginger)
  • 1/2 c water, maybe more
  • 1/3 c spiced rum
• Then mix in
  • 1 egg (or for a vegan version, 1 tbs flax meal)
  • 1c olive oil
  • 2 tsp vanilla
  • 1/2 cup cherries
  • 1-2 tbs molasses
  • 1/2 cup sugar
  • juice from 1/2 orange *see note below
• Then mix in
  • 1 cup flour
  • 1 cup breadcrumbs
  • 1 tsp baking powder
  • 1 tsp cinnamon
  • 1/2 tsp nutmeg
  • 1/2 tsp allspice
  • (I would have added ground ginger too but don’t have any)
  • (possibly consider 1/4 tsp pepper as well)

*NOTE: the more the fruit is soaked, the more water is drawn into the fruit or maybe is lost to evaporation. But the second time I made this (a week after the first) there was a big difference in the batter thickness. Albeit I was a little lax on measurements, and was making the vegan option (linseed not egg). Adjust with the added liquid (e.g. the orange juice) when mixing, for example perhaps leave it out to start if the fruit is soaked only a few days, or consider adding more if the fruit has been soaking a long time. And if not soaking much at all, consider replacing the initial soaking water with juice, and skipping the latter juice.

I spooned this into an oiled, lined base, 2L camping pot. There was about 2-3cm to the rim, and the lid is a few cm high in the middle. I placed a circle of baking paper over the top, and then tied the lid on (mainly to make it easier to lift in and out of the pressure cooker).

I steamed this on a trivot in the pressure cooker, with a few cups of water in the base (but not up the sides). First, steaming with the vent open for 15 mins, then on high pressure with the vent closed for 45 minutes or an hour (more if the batter is wet), then let it natural release and cool down for at least a few hours before transferring to bench to cool to room temp (I’d drizzle with rum at this point).  I’ll replace the baking paper in the lid, and dry off the top with paper towel, before setting it in the fridge. Some suggest storing in a fridge up to a week or frozen, others suggest it’s fine in just a cool place for months.

On the day of serving, I popped it back in the pressure cooker to steam for about 20 mins, and apparently, either natural release or quick release is ok. I was running out of time (surprise) so used a slow quick release (i.e. only letting out a small amount of steam), and kept it warm before serving.

Result: Take 1 was a rather wet dough, and little underdone initially, so I had to re-pressurise it and cook it more. It tasted pretty good, rich and moist, but the texture was poor in the centre where I guess it was undercooked to start. I did make it slightly less heavy on the rum, because it could be served to kids. But for the next one, bring it on! And if I have a nice stout open, perhaps that might go in too!