Christmas - Chocolate Steamed Pudding

Merry Christmas to you all!

It's been one of my most relaxing Christmases to date - we always have fairly low key days anyway, but this year I planned to cook the food very differently and it made a huge difference.

As is traditional in our house, for Christmas dinner, we have roast lamb and all the trimmings (roast potatoes, roasted sweet potato and carrots, broccoli and pigs in blankets).

This year, I decided to try and cook the roast lamb in my new Instant Pot - which is the most amazing electric pressure cooker. I did two half legs of lamb so they would fit, rather than a full leg.

Oh my goodness, it literally fell off the bone it was so succulent and tender. By cooking it in the IP, it freed up my oven for the vegetables and sausages -  gone was all the juggling I normally do to get it all cooked at the same time. THIS is what made all the difference for a stress free Christmas dinner.

Anyway, for pudding this year I really wanted to try something in the pot. I was enticed in by a Donna Hay video on facebook for her chocolate pudding which she boils for hours. It just looked soooo good. In our family we aren't fans of the traditional Christmas pudding full of fruit, so I knew this would be an ideal alternative, yet still feel very Christmassy.

Click here for the original recipe.

I'm going to add the recipe to my page with the instructions for cooking it in the Instant Pot pressure cooker. By the way, if you have never heard of the Instant Pot - google it and check it out, and my recommendation: GO AND BUY ONE!! I absolutely love it!

Chocolate Christmas Pudding
From: Donna Hay
Serves 8

Ingredients:

• 1 cup dried dates
• 1 teaspoon bi-carb (baking) soda
• 3/4 cup (180mls) boiling water
• 55g unsalted butter, chopped and softened
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 3/4 cup (135g) brown sugar
• 4 eggs
• 3/4 cup (110g) self raising flour, sifted
• 1/4 cup (25g) cocoa powder, sifted
• 100g dark chocolate, melted

For the sauce

• 3/4 cup (180mls) single (pouring) cream - I used the same amount of coconut milk from the tin - mostly solids, but heated to become liquid to suit my milk-allergic son)
• 200g dark chocolate, chopped
• 1/2 cup (60g) brown sugar
• 25g unsalted butter

Method:

1. Mix the bi-carb and water together, and place into a food processor with the dates. Allow to soak for 10 minutes and then process until they form a smooth-ish paste.
2.  Place the butter, sugar and vanilla into an electric mixer and beat for 5 mins until well combined. Add in the eggs, one at a time, mixing well after each one. You may need to add a spoonful of flour to help it come together.
3. Add the flour, cocoa, chocolate and date mixture and beat well.
4. Pour into a lightly greased 7-cup capacity (1.75L) pudding bowl. ***  Cover tightly and tie down with string, or use a lidded bowl if you can.
5. Place the pudding onto the trivet in the Instant Pot, and fill with boiling water until it is about 5cm below the rim of the bowl. Close the lid and put it on STEAM for 20 mins. Once that time has ended, turn it off, and then put in on MANUAL (high pressure) for 25 mins. Let it do a natural pressure release (NPR) for 20 mins.
6. Remove from the Instant Pot and allow to sit for 5-10 mins. Depending on your bowl, you may be able to turn it upside down and it comes straight out, or you may need to run a knife gently around the edge first. I use a lidded plastic bowl and it came out very easily on its own.
7. To make the sauce, place all the ingredients into a saucepan and stir over a low heat until everything is melted and the mixture is smooth. Pour over the pudding and serve.
8. I topped with sugared cranberries which I had made the night before and stored in an airtight container.

*** My pudding basin is only 1.2L big, so I filled it to about 4/5 full to allow for rising, and with the left over mixture I poured in into cupcake wrappers and cooked in the oven at 180 degrees for about 15 mins. Totally yummy!

Merry Christmas everyone, and a happy New Year to you too.

Kris x

Orange and Cranberry Hot Cross buns

After my first attempt at these earlier in the week, I have been thinking about, researching and contemplating how to improve them. I am so incredibly happy with these today and I honestly think they are the best ones I have ever eaten!

To top it all off, I knew I was having some Moose Maple Butter delivered this morning, so I wanted them out of the oven so I could slather it on them. This butter is absolutely delicious.....butter mixed with maple syrup and a touch of sea salt and it simply is the perfect accompaniment to the buns. For fairness I did also have a half with normal butter; it was good too, but the Moose Maple butter elevated it to another level.

For this recipe, I based it on Paul Hollywood's classic hot cross buns (from the BBC website - the one in his book is quite different), but made my own adjustments, so I will add my recipe below.

If you have time before Easter, do give these a go. Be aware though, they do take a few hours as they need to prove twice for an hour each time.

In my mind these are the best thing I have made this week!

Orange and Cranberry Hot Cross Buns

For the Buns:

300 ml milk

500 g strong white flour

75 g caster sugar

1 tsp salt

7g sachet fast-action yeast

50 g butter - melted

1 free range egg, beaten

150 g dried cranberries (not fresh ones)

2 oranges, zest of both and juice of one.

1 tsp mixed spice

sunflower oil for greasing the bowl

For the Cross:

75 g plain flour

5 tbsp water

For the Glaze:

1 tbsp caster sugar

1 tbsp boiling water

METHOD:

1. Bring the milk to the boil and then take it off the heat, transfer to a bowl and leave to cool down until it reaches hand temperature. This is very important. Hot milk will kill the yeast, so make sure you let it cool to a just warm temperature.

2. Zest the oranges into a small bowl. In another bowl add the cranberries and the juice of one orange, leave them to soak until step 6.

3. Mix the flour, spices, salt, sugar, yeast, butter and egg together in a bowl and then slowly add the warm milk, mixing until it forms a soft, sticky dough.

4. Tip out the bowl onto a lightly floured surface. Knead the dough for about 5 mins or until is is smooth and elastic. You can of course use the dough hook on an electric mixer, but do the final part out on the bench so it becomes less sticky.

5. Put the dough into a lightly oiled bowl, cover with oiled cling film and leave to rise in a warm place for about an hour or until doubled in size. 

6. Tip the dough out of the bowl onto the bench top and knead it to remove any air bubbles. Flatten it out into a rectangular shape and sprinkle the drained (and patted dry) cranberries and orange zest onto the dough. Fold the dough over to incorporate the toppings, and knead so they are well combined.  If you add the fruit into the first knead and prove, I have found it stops the dough rising so well. So adding it in just before the second prove seems to work better.

7. Divide the dough into 12 even sized pieces, and roll each piece into a smooth ball on a lightly floured surface - you shouldn't need much flour at this stage. Also, it's okay to knead these pieces a bit more to shape them. Arrange them onto a tray lined with baking parchment, leaving enough room so that they just touch when they expand and rise (about 1-2cm apart depending on their size).

8. Set aside to prove for another hour. At this stage I placed the tray into a clean plastic shopping bag rather than covering in cling film.

9. Heat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius.

10. For the cross, mix the flour with 5 tablespoons of water in a small bowl. Add the water a tablespoon at a time, so that you get the right consistency for a thick paste. Spoon the paste into a disposable piping bag (or ziplock bag) and trim off the bottom of the bag - a small opening is all you need. Pipe along each row of buns in one direction only, then come back and do the opposite direction to make crosses, all in one go. Don't do individual buns, it will look messy and take so much longer.

11. Bake for 20-25 mins on the middle shelf in the oven, or until golden brown.

12. Mix the caster sugar and water together until the sugar dissolves, and then when they buns are straight out of the oven brush them liberally with the glaze so the tops are all covered.

13. Gently rip the buns apart to eat and enjoy!

 

Utter, utter deliciousness!

Happy Easter everyone!