chocolate Christmas pudding with white chocolate custard

Remember when you were little and chocolate-fuelled and decided that you were going to work for Cadbury when you grew up?  Well, fist-pump six-year-old Amanda.  It took you until your thirty-fifth year, but you did it baby!

This post is brought to you by CADBURY*

Some Christmases are just more memorable than others.  My only white Christmas: the great calomine-covered Chicken Pox Christmas of 1987 is memorable for all the wrong reasons.

Others come to mind for happy reasons.  Like listening to Mum’s turkey call the Christmas we ate a turkey that my brothers had raised and butchered.  I was pregnant with the Big Sister and my folks hired a unit at Golden Beach. There’s a video of that turkey call and if she hadn’t been such a help with the kids while I wrote this post, I’d be showing it to you!

The other thing I remember about this Christmas is making personalised Christmas crackers for everyone.  Remember all the time you had on your hands before kids?  We were doing some fishing in the passage, so I chose whiting rigs for the prizes in the boys’ bonbons.

Lunch came, we sat down, crossed arms, cracked the bonbons and sinkers flew everywhere.  Little lead grenades flew around the unit bouncing into glass and mirrors.  Nothing was broken and no one was injured in the crossfire.  The incident is now referred to as the Christmas miracle of 2007.

This year we’re having Christmas on the farm.  The girls will wake up in their beds and discover that Santa has been to our house.  We’ll eat lunch next to the dam and come afternoon, the kids can have a slip and slide down the hill (water permitting).

For lunch we’re trying something different this year - a tapas-style lunch, with lots of small courses throughout the day.

We’re also mixing it up for dessert and serving an antidote to the traditional Christmas pudding - Trish McKenzie from Cadbury Kitchen’s Chocolate Christmas Pudding with White Chocolate Custard.

Chocolate Christmas Pudding with White Chocolate Custard

Ingredients:

for the pudding

• 1 cup sultanas
• ½ cup currants
• ½ cup brandy
• 125g butter, softened
• ⅔ cup caster sugar
• 3 eggs, lightly beaten
• Finely grated rind 1 orange
• 1½ cups SR flour
• ¼ cup CADBURY Bournville Cocoa
• ¼  cup milk
• ½ cup CADBURY Milk Chocolate Baking Chips

for the white chocolate custard:

• 4 egg yolks
• 2 tablespoons cornflour
• ½ cup caster sugar, extra
• 1½ cups thickened cream
• 1 cup milk, extra
• 100g CADBURY White Baking Chocolate, broken into pieces
• 2 tablespoons brandy, extra

Method:

for the pudding:

Combine the fruit and brandy, cover and stand overnight.

Cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Gradually add the egg, beating well between each addition. Fold in the rind, sifted flour and cocoa, fruit mixture, milk and choc chips.

Spoon the mixture into a greased and base paper lined 2.5 litre capacity pudding basin. Cover with a tight fitting lid or a double layer of foil and secure with string, if necessary. Place on an upturned saucer in the base of a large saucepan or boiler. Pour boiling water into the saucepan so that is comes halfway up the sides of the basin. Cover the saucepan with a tight-fitting lid and steam for 1½–1¾ hours, topping up water as required.

for the custard:

Whisk together the yolks, cornflour and caster sugar in a bowl. Combine the cream and milk in a saucepan and bring just to the boil, then add to the egg yolks and whisk until smooth. Return to the saucepan. Stir over a low heat until thickened slightly. Remove from the heat, add the chocolate and extra brandy and stir to combine. Serve warm with pudding.

*With thanks to CADBURY Kitchen for supporting this post and sending me samples of CADBURY Kitchen products.

what's your favourite Christmas memory?