Low Fat Christmas Pudding

A lovely moist pudding that is lower in fat than our traditional family pudding.

When Hubby's diet changed to a low fat, low sodium diet, I googled the web for a low fat Christmas pudding and found this recipe on the weightlossresources.co.uk website. Over the years I have played around with the ingredients and have ended up with a pudding that, according to my calculations¹, is higher in calories but contains around the same fat content.

Serves 10-12

Times

Preparation:

1 hour

Cooking:

3 hours in oven.

(I have never microwaved my pudding but the original recipe states that the pudding can be microwaved, which takes about 10-15 minutes.)

Reheating:

5-10 minutes in microwave or 1-2 hours in oven.

Ingredients

• 275g mixed fruit
• ¼ cup rum
• 75g glace cherries, halved or quartered
• 75g self-raising flour
• 1 tsp mixed spice or, ½tsp cinnamon, ¼tsp nutmeg and ¼tsp allspice
• 50g breadcrumbs (about 1 slice of bread roughly torn)
• 50g raw sugar
• 1 tsp lemon zest
• 1 tsp orange zest
• 170g apple, peeled, cored and thinly sliced (yields about 115g sliced apple)
• 1 cup grated carrot
• 1 Tbs lemon juice
• 2 eggs
• ¼ cup skim milk
• 2 Tbs honey
• ¼ cup extra rum for serving

Method

1. Soak the dried fruit, apple and carrot in rum overnight.
2. Soak the breadcrumbs in about a ¼ cup of water to soften them.
3. Sift flour into a large bowl, add cherries and coat the cherries in the flour.
4. Add spices, sugar and breadcrumbs, and stir.
5. Mix in grated zest, lemon juice and soaked fruit.
6. Beat the eggs, milk and honey in a separate bowl and slowly add to mixture until all ingredients are well-combined.
7. Place the mixture in a ovenproof bowl, cover with foil and then steam² for 3 hours.

When cooked, let the pudding cool, wrap it in foil and store it in the refrigerator or freezer.

To reheat:

1. Prick the top of the pudding.
2. Pour the extra rum on the pudding and then steam for 1-2 hours or microwave on high for 5-10 minutes.

Notes

1. Assuming 10 serves, following is the nutrition information per serving:

   Calories

   292.5

   kJ

   1227

   Carbohydrate (g)

   60.1

   Protein

   3.3

   Fat (g)

   1.5

   Fibre (g)

   3.2

   The nutritional values have been calculated using the information in the Calorie King database.

2. To steam the pudding:
   1. Stand the foil-covered bowl in a roasting pan filled with water.
   2. Place a sheet of foil over the bowl and roasting pan.
   3. Cook in the oven at 180°C (160°C fan-forced).

Tips

• For something different, try dried cranberries instead of glace cherries.
• Use ramekins to make individual or smaller puddings.