Steamed golden syrup pudding (no-fruit Christmas pudding recipe)

Steamed golden syrup pudding - it's easy to make, delicious and perfect as a fruit-free, or chocolate Christmas pudding alternative.

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• Ingredients
• Instructions
• Recipe

I wanted to play my favourite Christmas carol as the opening to a post about steamed golden syrup pudding but alas my technical skills don’t seem to be up to the challenge today.

I’m reserving all my brain power for baking, baking and more baking (and a fair bit of eating too).

My favourite Christmas song also happens to be loved by quite a lot of people but I have to say, it was my favourite long before it was popular.

Yes I’m talking about Mariah Carey’s All I want for Christmas.

I’ve been listening to her Christmas album since it was released back in 1994.

Mum and Dad were big Mariah fans so I grew up to love her too.

Don’t judge me – I love a bit of Hero.

One love I didn’t adopt from my parents was a love for Christmas pudding.

I’m not a fan of dried fruit at all.

I can’t remember who said it but the other day a blogger referred to sultanas as ‘dried flies’ and I tend to agree.

On the other hand, it’s not Christmas without pudding and I had a brand new pudding steamer to take for a whirl.

So a Googling I went and came up with this recipe for golden syrup pudding.

It’s actually quite hard to find a fruit-free, non-chocolate steamed pudding recipe.

But I found one and it was a great pudding to christen the tin and perfect with vanilla ice-cream or cream.

Ingredients

To make this fruit-free Christmas pudding you will need just a few basic ingredients: 

• Sugar - we used caster sugar but raw would also work. I am yet to try it with rapadura or brown sugar. 
• Eggs - preferably free-range eggs. 
• Butter - pure butter that comes wrapped in foil. 
• Plain flour - also called all purpose flour (not self-rising flour)
• Baking powder - helps the pudding rise. 
• Salt - our favourite is Celtic sea salt
• Milk - full fat or whole milk
• Vanilla extract - we use homemade vanilla in our baking
• Golden syrup 

I made the pudding at my parents house hence the portable containers.

How fabulously fresh do those eggs look?

They’re so yellow!

They’re fresh from the Farmer’s markets.

Instructions

Golden syrup steamed puddings are really simple to make but are best made in time to serve them fresh so make sure you time them accordingly: 

1. Start by beating the eggs and the sugar together until it is thick and creamy using an electric mixer. 

2. Add the butter and the milk and beat them into the sugary eggs.

3. Fold the dry ingredients and the vanilla into the sponge mixture using a spatula.

4. Grease the pudding bowl generously with butter or oil and then top in the golden syrup. 

5. Pour the batter into the tin and spread it out so the top is flat. Secure the lid on top of the basin.

6. Use a large saucepan - you will need one tall enough to place the pudding tin in so you can still put the lid on the pot. The original recipe said to place an upturned saucer or a small trivet on the bottom.

I would recommend using a trivet instead of the saucer – it clattered away for the whole hour and a half and was very annoying.

7. Cover the saucer with water and then bring the water to the boil.

8. Put the pudding in the pot, put the lid on and reduce the heat to low heat then leave it to steam away for 1 ½ hours.

Be sure to check it every once in a while to make sure the water level doesn’t drop too much. You want it to always come up the sides of the basin.

9. Remove the pudding from the basin. The tricky part is getting the lid off the steamer tin while it’s still warm.I recommend using oven mitts.

Once you’ve done that, place your serving plate over the top and flip it all over to invert the pudding onto the plate.

Keep your fingers crossed that it doesn’t stick to the bottom of the pudding basin.

It's not the prettiest looking pudding but it sure is tasty.

Serve the pudding warm with ice-cream or cream. Enjoy!

It’s not the prettiest looking pudding but it sure is tasty.

Serve the pudding warm with vanilla ice cream or cream. Enjoy!

What about you?

What’s your favourite Christmas song?

Recipe