Will My Christmas Pudding Still Be OK If The First Steaming Was Longer Than Stated In The Recipe?

Our answer

Nigella's Ultimate Christmas Pudding (from NIGELLA CHRISTMAS) is a damp, sticky but suprisingly light Christmas Pudding. The recipe suggests that the large 3-pint pudding is initially steamed for 5 hours and then for a further 3 hours on Christmas Day. The smaller 3-pint pudding should be steamed for 3 hours initially and then another 3 hours on Christmas Day.

The good news is that steaming is a very gentle form of cooking and Christmas puddings themesleves are very forgiving. So you do not need to worry about the longer first steaming and you can even steam the larger pudding for the full 8 hours initially if you want to reheat it in a microwave on Christmas Day. For the large pudding, as it has already had 6 hours, you can steam it for 2 hours before serving, as this should be long enough to reheat the pudding all the way through. But it will not matter too much if the steaming time is a bit longer on the day. For the smaller pudding, we would suggest still steaming it for 3 hours, as the extra 15 minutes added to the first steaming will not make much difference to the time and the pudding will need to get to the full total steaming time of 6 hours to properly develop its flavour and darker colour.