Renowned chef Phil Howardshares his favourite Christmas pudding recipe and explains why it’s so special
Christmas is a wonderfully indulgent time of year and for me, of all the things I look forward to eating, nothing trumps the Christmas pud.
As a cook, I am a classicist. I have a complete belief that harmony of flavour is where pleasure lies, and there is no greater example of an extraordinary gaggle of ingredients coming together to do just that than in a Christmas pud.
The recipe I use has 19 ingredients. Whilst they are all very happy bedfellows, they can only truly become so given enough time to befriend each other properly and slowly, slowly become one.
Dried fruit, spices, bread, fruit, vegetables, syrups, fats and truck loads of booze is a funny old mix, but if there was ever an example of a creation magnificently displaying the notion of “the whole being so much more than the sum of its parts”, it is this – the mighty Christmas pudding.
Phil Howard is the co-owner of Michelin-starred restaurant Elystan Street (elystanstreet.com) and Kitchen W8 (kitchenw8.com) with Rebecca Mascarenhas and was the winner of the 2022 Michelin Mentor Award.
My tried and tested recipe
My mother-in-law shared her recipe with me. We ate hers for many years and I always felt it was the best I had ever eaten.
Given the number of ingredients, and that most Christmas puddings contain the same range of goodies, it is hard to pin down why this one is so good.
The original recipe contained barley wine. I first started making this back in the days of my much-loved restaurant, The Square. I struggled to find barley wine so substituted it with Pedro Ximénez sherry. Whilst I am absolutely sure that this extraordinarily delicious and heady wine could only have improved on the original recipe, there is more to it than this.
But I have wasted no time in trying to analyse the recipe; I just make it well in advance every year, as I suggest you do, ensuring there is more than enough to go round and allow me to eat half my bodyweight of it on Christmas Day.
In fact, I enjoy it so much that I make a promise to myself, several spoonfuls in, to eat it more than just once a year. But the truth is, it is a once-a-year thing.
My tips are get the best ingredients money can buy, spend a day indulging in the craft of making it, stash it for a few months where you’ll see it from time to time and then eat
