Frances Bissell's Low-fat Christmas Pudding

Ingredients

 * 230 grams (8 oz, 4 loosely packed
 * cups) fresh wholemal
 * breadcrumbs
 * 230 grams (8 oz, 2 cups) each of
 * roughly chopped muscatel
 * (black) raisins
 * sultanas (yellow raisins)
 * and dried apricots
 * 60 grams (2 oz, ¾ cup) crumbled
 * almond macaroons or
 * amaretti
 * 60 grams (2 oz, ¾ cup) chopped
 * almonds
 * 60 grams (2 oz, ½ cup) ground or
 * flaked almonds
 * 1 grated appple
 * 1 tbsp grated orange zest
 * 1 tsp ground cinnamon
 * 1 tsp ground mace
 * 1/2 tsp ground cardamom (i had none
 * so used cumin, which worked
 * as well!)
 * 1/2 tsp ground cloves (i used whole
 * and put them in the food
 * processor
 * with the bread! again, it
 * worked)
 * 1/2 tsp ground allspice
 * 2 tbsp orange marmalade or candied
 * orange peel
 * juice of 1 orange
 * 4 med free-range eggs
 * 6 tbsp or 1 miniature bottle of
 * cognac
 * 140 ml (5 fl oz, scant 2/3 cup)
 * fortified muscat wine, port
 * marsala
 * or rich oloroso sherry

Directions
Put all the dry ingredients in a large bowl and mix thoroughly. Put the marmalade, orange juice, eggs, brandy and wine in another large bowl, or in the blender or food processor, and beat until well blended and frothy. Pour the liquid over the dry ingredients. Mix until moist. Cover, and let sand for a couple of hours at least and, if possible, overnight to let the spice flavours develop. Oil or butter the pudding basin and spoon in the mixture. As it contains no raw flour, it will not expand very much during the cooking, so you can fill the basin to within 1.25 cm (½ inch) of the rim. Take a square of greaseproof or waxed paper, oil or butter it (i didn"t bother, but did oil the basins. I don"t have a 3-pint one, so used 1 2-pint and 1 1-pint one, 2 pints being ample for my family for christmas dinner) and tie it over the top of the basin with string. Steam in boiling water for 5 hours. Allow pudding to cool completely before wrapping it, still in its basin, in fresh greaseproof paper plus a layer of foil. Store in a cool dark place. On christmas day, steam for a further two hours. Bissell/levy suggest serving this with creme fraiche, rather than the traditional brandy butter (don"t ask - not to be discussed on this mailing list!!!), and i do think this is one occasion when a little cream is permissible! incidentally, the tradition is that every member of the family stirs the pudding mixture while making a wish....