Smaller Versions of Ultimate Christmas Pudding

Our answer

Nigella's Ultimate Christmas Pudding recipe (from Christmas and on the Nigella website) is enough to fill a 1.7 litre/3-pint pudding basin, or can be split into smaller sizes. Nigella suggests perhaps making one 1.2 litre/2-pint pudding and one 600m/1-pint pudding - these would serve 8-10 people for the 1.2 litre version and 4 to 6 for the 600ml version. Or you could easily make three 600ml/1-pint puddings to give as gifts. The steaming time for the 1.2 litre and 600ml versions are 3 hours for the initial steaming and then a further 3 hours for the second steaming (on Christmas Day).

For 300ml/1/2-pint size basins we would stick to the timings above, as it is difficult to overcook a Christmas Pudding since steaming is such a gentle method of cooking. The mini pudding basins are usually around 150ml/1/4-pint capacity. Unfortunately we have not tested the recipe for this size of pudding but we would guess at an initial steaming time of 2 hours and then a second steaming time of 1 hour. However we cannot guarantee the results as we have not tested this size ourselves.