‘Tis the season to splurge on small-batch chocolate, swank kitchen tools and coffee-table-worthy cookbooks. Nov 8, 2016 Dominique Lamberton and Alexandra...
Read MoreMichele Chandler’s Plum Pudding–Fit for a King I remember childhood Christmases in New England. Snowflakes in my face and angels in the snow. The forever waiting for all good things like Santa’s presents and the huge turkey dinner with family and friends. I waited patiently- well not so patiently, really, for dessert. I knew what it would be and it only came once a year. It was Christmas pudding with the brandy flames dancing around the platter. The flames warmed the spicy cake with the sweet, rich fruit wrapped inside. I used to let the soft parts melt and the chewy parts linger. That way I could make each mouthful last that much longer. Now my long ago experiences live again. My friend, Michele Chandler, has created a plum pudding fit for a king. In fact her creation is called the King George pudding, celebrating the comfort and joy of this tradition which began as Christmas dessert in the court of this English monarch in the 1700’s. Ms. Chandler’s plum pudding is one pound of pure heaven containing many dried and candied fruits including figs, raisins, mangoes cherries and apricots. Fully one quarter of the dessert is fruit, making it much softer and moister than its cousin, the fruit cake. The rituals which surround plum pudding add to the anticipation. Traditionally, plum pudding is prepared months before the Holidays. Brandy or other liquor is poured over the dessert to steep and blend the flavours. Then it is gently steamed before serving to enhance its aromatic charm. The flambe presentation adds to the drama. The warm pudding is served with hard sauce, a flavoured, fluffy butter-sugar topping which gently melts over the tender pudding. Fit for a king, indeed! The King George plum pudding has been a long time in the making. Ms. Chandler, who has a history in hospitality and food service, took years to perfect her creation. Starting with her British tradition, she prepared plum pudding as a favourite activity for family and friends. She has grown her talents into a successful company, The Art of Pudding. Michele has been unrelenting in her search for the best ingredients, recipe and preparation. The result is a unique dessert which...
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SKANEATELES | When visitors to the 22nd annual Dickens Christmas stop at the Mid-Lakes Navigation storefront to taste some figgy pudding, they won’t be putting food just in their mouths. Through a partnership with the Skaneateles Ecumenical Food Pantry, The Art of Pudding — the Canadian company that offers samples and sells containers of its King George figgy pudding — donates the proceeds from every sample to the food pantry. Suggesting a contribution of 25 cents per sample, Michele Chandler, the company’s owner, said she sent a check for $375 to the food pantry in 2013 — the first year the puddings appeared at Dickens — and last year cut a check to the food pantry $750. This year, Chandler wants to give $1,000 to the food pantry and hopes the community joins her in taking part in a British holiday tradition and in supporting a community organization. “It’s been a really wonderful triple win to partner with the food pantry,” she said. “In one year, we doubled the proceeds to the food pantry.” The pudding samples are available at Mid-Lakes from noon to 4 p.m. every day of the festival except Christmas Eve, Chandler said. In fact, food pantry volunteers will help staff the sample table at Mid-Lakes the weekend of Saturday, Dec. 5 and Sunday, Dec. 6. The partnership between the pudding maker and the food pantry began, Chandler said, because “the festival grew so much” that Chandler and her assistants could not keep up with the demand of offering free samples and knew they would have to charge people to take the figgy morsels. So, rather than pocketing the money, they decided to turn it into a charitable venture so that people are not just coming into Mid-Lakes for a free dessert and are helping out a worthy cause in the process. “It always warms their hearts that this goes back to something wonderful,” Chandler said of the people who come in for samples. “There’s incredible need in central New York that is hidden at the most important time of the year.” She noted a quarter for a sample can sometimes turn into a $20 bill from a generous taster, and she credited Mid-Lakes staff for...
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Raymond Blanc: how to make brandy butter and… by...
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A traditional pudding needn’t be such a heavy punctuation point on a rich holiday feast. As Karen Pinchin writes, the way to lighten up the seasonal treat is with lots of fresh fruit and a drizzle – not a dollop – of flavourful sauce Four luscious puddings that will turn your holiday menu upside down KAREN PINCHIN Special to The Globe and Mail Published Friday, Nov. 14 2014, 12:00 AM EST Last updated Thursday, Nov. 13 2014, 12:50 PM EST Dense and decadent, redolent of booze-soaked dried fruit and fragrant citrus peel, the Christmas pudding is arguably the ultimate holiday dessert. In Britain and much of the Commonwealth, where festive puddings shaped in copper forms and stoneware mixing bowls have been a holiday staple for centuries, the dish was traditionally prepared months in advance and allowed to mellow as ingredients intermingled, preserved by large amounts of brandy, sugar and beef fat. Some families took turns mixing the batter and making a wish, after which a silver coin or trinket would be added, with the finder winning luck for the year. (In The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding, Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot found a silver bachelor’s button, which guaranteed the unmarried detective another year of unsurprising singledom.) But unlike brick-like fruitcake, which is generally more batter than fruit, the best pudding sports a ratio of equal parts fruit and nuts to batter and a moist, nuanced crumb. Its texture is aided by a process of steaming and an aging period of hours to months. “You’d never serve a pudding fresh from the oven,” says Michelle Chandler, a former business consultant who started producing and selling her own puddings under the brand name The Art of Pudding last year. For decades, she has served one – doused with brandy and set alight tableside in a dim room, its blue flame licking the edge of the plate – as the pièce de résistance of every Christmas feast. “It’s such a comfort food,” she says. “It’s warm, has good mouth feel and [boasts] such depth of flavour. I was trying to capture the dark, luscious puddings I remember eating as a child. I couldn’t give a hoot about the rest of Christmas dinner....
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by CookingWithKimberly Web chef, Kimberly Turner, from http://CookingWithKimberly.com shares with you what she has to Say About…The King George Christmas Pudding by The Art of Pudding available at Harvest Barn Country Markets! * Review: http://CookingWithKimberly.com/web-chef-review-the-king-george-christmas-pudding-by-the-art-of-pudding Be a Champion in Your Kitchen & Eat Deliciously! * Like on Facebook: http://facebook.com/CookingWithKimberly * Subscribe on ifood TV: http://iFood.tv/CookingWithKimberly * Follow @CookingWithKimE on Twitter: http://twitter.com/CookingWithKimE Credits: The Art of Pudding: http://TheArtOfPudding.com Harvest Barn Country Markets: http://HarvestBarn.ca Mom: http://IngridTurnerToday.com Styling: http://KapowMag.com/fashion Video Production by Kapow Mag Media: http://KapowMag.com/media Music: “Acid Jazz” & “Modern Jazz Samba” by Kevin MacLeod – http://Incompetech.com Sounds: Mike Koenig @ http://SoundBible.com Kimberly’s Fitness: Register for Fitness Classes @ http://BAMNiagara.ca – “Don’t Hate, Get in SHAPE!” Cooking With Kimberly is Made in Niagara! Are you? List your Biz: http://MadeInNiagara.info/list-your-biz! Need Kitchen Gear? Shop @...
Read MoreSultanas, Brown Sugar, Egg, Apples, Palm & Modified Palm Shortening, Wheat Flour, Currants, Raisins, Dried Figs, Orange Juice Concentrate, Breadcrumbs, Candied Citrus Peel, Dried Apricots, Ginger, Glace Cherries, Brandy, Dried Mango, Dried Pear, Dried citrus peel, Cane Syrup, Baking Powder, Salt, Spices Contains eggs and wheat. Made in a factory where dairy, sesame seeds, nuts and eggs may be...
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By Lindy Mechefske Thursday, November 16, 2017 6:48:59 EST PM KINGSTON – I grew up in a household where the plum pudding was not just a dessert but an all-important Christmas ritual. On “stir-up Sunday,” the last Sunday before Advent, typically the last Sunday in November, my mother assembled the ingredients for her puddings, which included a small mountain of dried fruit, brandy and several dimes and silver sixpence. The whole family were called upon to stir the pudding mixture and make a wish. Then there was the cheesecloth and pudding basins and the practically ceremonial steaming of the puddings. For the month of December, the precious puddings were stored in the dark cool of the basement until Christmas Day when the pudding was brought out, re-steamed, and served set aflame for dessert, accompanied by rum butter. The latter was my absolute favourite part of Christmas dinner. It still is. And you can’t have rum butter without Christmas pudding. My father’s rules. I belonged in the do-not-love Christmas pudding camp, amongst all those others who believe that the Christmas pudding (also known as plum or figgy pudding) should quite rightly be set afire, and then preferably left to burn to ashes. The same for fruit cake and haggis and other similar foods, all best saved for an apocalypse. But my father was having none of that. “You’re too young for likes and dislikes,” he’d say, so I ate the Christmas pudding, liberally topped with my mother’s fabulous, decadent rum butter. In time, I came to love plum pudding, fruit cake and, yes, even haggis, adding credence to my father’s argument that I probably was too young to have likes and dislikes. Plum pudding has its roots in medieval English cooking, when there were few ways to preserve other than drying, salting or fermenting. Dried fruits, including raisins, prunes, figs, currants and apricots, were an important commodity in a time when sugar was an expensive luxury item and you could not simply run to the refrigerator or store for supplies. Dried fruit served as a preservative of sorts in many households, where the only sugar to be had was that contained in fruits. In its earliest origins, plum pudding contained...
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On a wonderfully sunny Saturday in October, five Cornell Hotel School graduates, led by the head of Beverage at the CHS, Cheryl Stanley, worked through a great tasting of paired drinks with King George. Cheryl took us all over the map, and her notes are below. Hopefully this will help you frame your end-of-festive-meal selection over the holidays. Cheers! Christmas Pudding needs to be enjoyed with a beverage, so how perfect would it be enjoying the pudding with a nightcap after a wonderful meal. In selecting the potential beverages, body, texture, flavors, aromas, and sweetness levels were considered to find the best match. Below are the top favorites of a panel of educated consumers. Late Harvest Vidal Blanc from New York or Niagara Peninsula – This style of wine has layers of orchard and stone fruit. There are hints of honey and lots of sweetness on the palate. With the rich intensity of the fruit in the King George Christmas Pudding, the late harvested Vidal blanc complements specifically the citrus fruit flavors in the pudding. The sweetness of the pudding complements the sweetness of the wine. This is a delightful pairing with each other. Tawny Muscat from Australia – This nutty floral and fruity wine complements the nutty and fruity flavors and aromas of the Christmas Pudding. These two items accompany each other well due to the delicate slightly savory and spicy notes in the wine and the pudding. An aged tawny port from Portugal would be similar in style to this wine and would be a recommended food and wine pairing. Oloroso Sherry – An oloroso sherry would complement the nuttiness in the Christmas pudding. A medium-dry style would be even better because of the sweetness in the pudding and in the wine. The body of both of the wines equal each other in weight and texture. Sercial Madeira – The fruitiness accents the fruitiness in the wine. This wine has wonderful acidity and cleanses through the pudding to refresh for each bite. There is a wonderful surprise because the wine is complex in aromatic profile and there are similarities to the citrus notes in the wine. Maple Liqueur – What is more Canadian...
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