Cranberry gingerbread Christmas pudding with ginger sauce

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Sarah Randell

Serves 12-14 | prep 45 minutes | total time 4 hours 45 mins, plus reheating on Christmas Day

Ingredients

For the cake

300g Jamaican ginger cake
100g fresh white breadcrumbs
300g light muscovado sugar
1 tbsp ground ginger
2 tsp ground cinnamon
a generous pinch of ground cloves
200g plain flour
200g sultanas
200g raisins
4 x 75g packs dried cranberries
200g pecans, toasted and roughly chopped
200g cold hard unsalted butter, grated
1 large Bramley cooking apple, grated
4 large eggs, lightly beaten
zest and juice of 2 oranges
a small handful of fresh cranberries, to decorate
2 bay leaves, to decorate

For the ginger sauce

600ml double cream
4 tbsp Crabbie's ginger wine
6 large egg yolks
2 tbsp cornflour
4 tbsp caster sugar
a generous pinch of ground ginger

Step by step

Get ahead

The Christmas pudding can be made up to three months ahead

Break up the ginger cake and whiz it to crumbs in a food processor. Tip it into a large bowl with the breadcrumbs, sugar, ginger, cinnamon, cloves, flour, sultanas, raisins, cranberries and pecans. Mix everything together well.
Scatter over the grated butter and apple, then toss them into the dry ingredients in the bowl.
In a separate bowl, combine the beaten eggs with the orange zest and juice, then pour over the other ingredients in the large bowl. Stir thoroughly until everything is combined.
Tip The pudding can also be steamed in a 2-litre pudding basin. Cut out a square of nonstick baking paper big enough to cover the top of the basin and butter one side. Cut out a square of foil the same size, then place both over the top of the basin (buttered paper-side down) once the mixture is inside the basin. Make a pleat in the middle to allow the pudding to expand as it steams. Tie string around the rim of the basin to secure the paper and foil and make a string handle so you can lift the cooked pudding out of the pan easily.
Pile the mixture into both halves of a 2-litre buttered ball mould (see below), then join them together. Steam the pudding for 4 hours. Cool completely; remove the pudding from the mould and wrap in nonstick baking paper and foil; store until needed.
Steam the pudding in the mould for a further 2 hours on Christmas Day.
To make the ginger sauce, heat the cream and ginger wine in a pan to simmering point – don't let it boil. In a bowl, mix together the egg yolks, cornflour, sugar and ground ginger. Pour the cream over the egg mixture, stirring until combined.
Return the sauce to the pan and heat gently, stirring with a wooden spoon, until it thickens and coats the back of the spoon easily.
Place the pudding on a serving plate, top with a little of the sauce and decorate with cranberries and bay leaves. Serve the rest of the sauce alongside.

We've replaced suet with grated butter and some of the usual breadcrumbs with ginger cake, so the pud remains light but is full of flavour. The apple and cranberries keep the pud juicy, and the final flourish is a dash of ginger wine stirred into the sauce – a twist on tradition.

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