Iced Christmas Pudding with Glace Fruits

This recipe is taken from Delia Smith’s Christmas

If you would like to offer your guests a frozen alternative to Traditional Christmas Pudding, then this is unbeatable.

It consists of creamy textured ice cream made with dark rum and creamed coconut, interspersed with chunks of glacé fruits that have been soaked in dark rum. Because this ice cream is soft in texture there is no need to remove it from the freezer in advance of serving. Any ice cream pudding left over after serving must be returned immediately to the freezer and taken out again for second helpings.

The Delia Online Cookery School: Another festive recipe is Christmas Stollen which you can watch being made in our video. Just click the recipe image to play.

Got a question on Delia's recipes? Ask Lindsey

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Serving the perfect Iced Christmas Pudding

Asked by: Finsgranny

Hi Lindsey, I've just made Delia's Christmas Pudding Ice Cream, as a trial run for Christmas. It's totally delicious (of course!) but....I couldn't describe it as coming soft out of the freezer. In fact, it was pretty rock hard for about 10 minutes. As I'm going to make it again for Christmas dinner - where did I go wrong.....and have you any suggestions to make it softer please?

Answered by Lindsey: Hello, I think it’s very unlikely that you have done anything wrong with the Iced Christmas Pudding with Glace Fruits recipe It’s probably because your freezer works significantly better than Delia’s freezer did when she developed the recipe more that 27 years ago. If your iced pudding was good after it had been left for 10 minutes out of the freezer I think you should plan for the same on the day. Kind regards Lindsey

Method

Marinate all the fruits in the rum overnight.

Next day, in a bowl, whisk the egg yolks and sugar together. Then in a small saucepan bring the cream up to simmering point and add the grated coconut to it, stirring until the coconut has dissolved completely. Now pour the cream and coconut mixture on to the egg mixture, whisking all the time – it should thicken like light egg custard.

Allow it to cool slightly before adding the yoghurt. Stir everything well and leave to get cold before adding the marinated fruits together with the rum. Stir well again, then pour the whole mixture into the pudding basin, cover with clingfilm and place in the freezer until almost set – this is when the ice cream has the consistency of 'soft scoop', and it can take up to 7 hours to set to this stage.

At this point stir it very thoroughly to distribute any ice crystals and make sure the fruits are evenly distributed. Return to the freezer overnight. The ice cream will freeze, but still remain soft in texture. To turn it out, dip the bowl briefly in hot water, then slide a palette knife around the edge.

Serve at once, cut into slices.