At the Adelaide Central Markets, we love the boys and girls at Charlesworth Nuts who are happy to be given the recipe, weigh out everything and have it ready for you when you get back.

Suet has become much harder to source, and while it can still be found in some supermarkets in a long-life form, this has a weird smell which we do not like. All Feast Stores and Marino Meats have suet, and any good, old-fashioned butcher will be able to come to the party, but you might be wise to order it.

Last year, determined to have something on hand for the usual visitors over the Christmas break, I made a huge fruit cake and didn’t hear the timer go. When the smell finally made it to the upstairs room where I was working, it was way too late and the cake was ruined.

We have done the same thing on a Christmas Day, occupied with drinks and canapés until the smell of a steamer boiled dry brought us to our senses.

Forget the waste – icecream without pudding was a miserable end to an otherwise wonderful meal, and a fruitcake in the bin left me feeling angry over my stupidity for days. Best advice: keep the timer in your pocket.

This is the last time I am publishing the recipe for The Mistress’s Own Plum Pudding in the conventional press and I’m not sending it to anyone ever again.

It will be on the Galaxy Guides website with our fruitcake and other Christmas baking in the Christmas section of the recipe index, where you will also find the recipe for Olive’s Own Fruitcake and a very easy, but utterly wonderful, fresh date and apricot cake we used to make at Mistress Augustine’s Restaurant.

The fruitcake was served with house-made apricot jam and that wonderful old Farmers Union Black- Rinded Vintage Cheddar.

There are now a few good Australian vintage cheddars, including South Australian Alexandrina Cheese Company’s Mount Jagged Mature Cheddar and Tasmanian Pyengana, but we still fondly remember that rinded black cheddar.

The Mistress’s own plum pudding

Makes 1 or 2 large puddings,

12/24 portions

INGREDIENTS

200g/ 400g seedless raisins

200g/400g sultanas

65g/125g candied peel, finely chopped

65g/125g glacé red cherries

65g/125g glacé ginger, roughly chopped

235g/275g fresh Mejhul dates or 250g soft-pitted

Chinese dates, cut into 3

120g/250g glacé apricot, cut into quarters

½/1 granny smith apple, peeled and quartered

½/1 large carrot, peeled and roughly chopped

125g/250g suet, white part only roughly chopped, lightly frozen and finely minced

125g/250g stale white bread

2/4 oranges, zest of all, juice of two-and-a-half

½/1 lemon, zest of all, juice of half

125g/250g plain flour

125g/250g soft brown sugar

½ tsp/5g mixed spice

½ tsp/5g cinnamon

¼/½ a nutmeg

3 whole eggs and 1 yolk/7 x

61g eggs or equivalent at room temperature

185ml/375ml Guinness stout or other stout; replace with dry ginger ale

50ml/100ml cognac; replace with fresh-strained orange or lemon juice

METHOD

Place the raisins, sultanas, candied peel, glacé ginger, cherries and dates into a large bowl. Add the orange and lemon zest, and strain the juice on to the fruit.

Grate the nutmeg into the bowl, and add the cinnamon and mixed spice.

Add the cognac and the stout; mix well, cover with plastic and allow to stand in a cool place for at least five hours or preferably overnight.

Tear up the bread and process in the food processor; add the flour, and process until very fine.

With the motor running, add the chilled suet and process until you have what resembles very fine breadcrumbs – add to the fruit. Process the carrot and apple in a food processor until it is fine, then add to the fruit mix.

Whisk the eggs with an electric mixer until they start to foam; add the sugar, and whisk until thick and fluffy.

Mix everything well, cover with plastic and allow to rest in a cool place overnight.

Put about 10cm of water into two large saucepans and put a small old plate in the bottom of each pot.

Generously butter and flour two pudding basins and wrap each basin tightly in cloth or line a cloth with baking parchment and tie up; or if your prefer to be more modern, use two layers of microwave-safe plastic wrap. Put one pudding in each pot, cover with a lid and steam the puddings for four hours, making sure you frequently check the level of the steamer. Allow the pudding to cool in the basin or cloth and put into the freezer.

TO SERVE

Take the pudding out of the freezer last thing on Christmas Eve. Steam it in the same manner for two hours and keep warm in the pot. Carefully unwrap and unmould onto your serving plate. Flame with warmed cognac. Don’t go overboard with the cognac – one year we set fire to the tablecloth!