I love mince pies, I love Christmas cake and I love Christmas pudding. There is a theme here I think… Mince pies are pretty easy to make (obviously using pre-made pastry, I need to work on those skills) but Christmas cake and pudding take a bit more planning and love. As soon as we hit December I seem to be non-stop with personal engagements and my to-do list is pages long, so planning kinda goes out the window. But this is a supper easy recipe today that requires no cooking and is so quick to whip up. I have very slightly adapted Delia’s no-bake mini Christmas cake recipe. I decided to make mine into little Christmas puddings because well, they’re really cute.
Ingredients
– 200g of dried fruit (mine included sultanas, currants, raisins and candied mixed peel)
– 40g ground almond (I use slightly more than Delia as otherwise I found the mixture slightly wet)
– 50g chopped glacĂ© ginger
– 1 tsp mixed spice
– Grated rind of one orange
– 1 to 2 tsp of fresh orange juice (just squeeze out the orange above)
– Marzipan (you can buy in a block in most supermarkets)
– White icing (again I bought a block of it and just sliced off what I needed and then wrapped the rest)
– Holly and berry sugar decorations (these are from Waitrose, but I have seen very similar decorations in other supermarkets too)
Place all of the ingredients except for the orange juice, into a food processor and chop finely. Add 1 or 2 tsp of the orange juice, depending on how dry the mixture is, it adds such a fresh aroma to the puddings. Pulse to mix in the juice. Don’t over process it otherwise it will be a very wet mixture.
Then divide the mixture into 9 balls and place them onto a flat surface. I then shape them into puddings whilst on the flat surface – I kind of squeeze the top up and pat them down the sides to create the shape.
Next roll out your marzipan and icing onto a board dusted with icing sugar so they do not stick. I roll out to a couple of mm thick. You need to cut 9 discs out of each. I don’t actually have any small cutters (need to ask Santa for some of these) so I just used a small shot glass I have. Worked pretty well!
Get your marzipan disc first and just lightly squeeze the edges of it with your thumb and index finger to almost stretch it very slightly. I do this because I want the marzipan to just be seen under the white icing. Place the disc onto your pudding and lightly press down. Dip your finger into some water to just add a tiny drop onto the marzipan, then place your icing disc on top of the marzipan and press down lightly. Add two holly leaves and berries and you are done! That’s it.
You could also decorate your pudding with silver balls or stardust or anything else that feels festive. I then packed these up in pairs and wrapped them in cellophane and ribbon to add to the hamper.
These are just so god damn cute even the biggest of Scrooges will enjoy these! I brought these to a Christmas diner at the weekend and they went down very well. Enjoy!
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