February 13: The Claus's Christmas Pudding

I know it's not Christmas, but the system I chose to order the recipes has this recipe fall today. And it's not that I mind. It's cold, and anything warm and Christmas-like is welcome on cold days like today. So it was about 11:30 when I started gathering ingredients for this pudding:

I mixed 2/3 cup of dried cranberries and 2/3 cup of golden raisins in a bowl. I put 1/2 cup dried cherries in another bowl (they were supposed to be candied cherries, but I couldn't find any). Then I poured 3/4 cup of warm cream sherry over the cherries.

I put 16 slices of raisin bread on a baking sheet and baked in a 250 degree oven for 5 minutes per side.

While that was baking, I combined 3 egg yolks, 1 1/2 cups light cream, 1/3 cup granulated sugar, and 1/4 tsp kosher salt in a saucepan. I stirred and cooked it until it thickened to coat a spoon. Then I cooled it quickly in ice water and added 1 1/2 tsp of cherry extract:

I cut the cooled bread into 1/2-inch cubes and put them in a large bowl. Then I poured the custard over top and tossed to coat the bread:

This is how I layered the pudding into a buttered bowl: 1/4 of cherries, 1/3 cup raisin mixture, 1/4 cup white chocolate chips, 1/4 bread cube mixture, and sprinkle with sherry. Repeat 3 times:

This bowl fit in my crockpot, but the lid wouldn't fit, so I covered the bowl with foil, put it in the crockpot with 1 cup of hot water, then covered the whole crockpot with foil very tightly. (I forgot to take a picture of it). It cooked on low for 5 1/2 hours, and looked like this when it was done:

To make the sauce, in a bowl, I combined 2 egg yolks, 2 tbsp sherry, 1/2 tsp vanilla, and 1/4 cup powdered sugar. In another bowl, I beat up 1/2 cup whipping cream. Then I folded the cream into the egg yolk mixture, and served the sauce on top of the pudding:

Tonight for dinner we had spaghetti with the leftover bolognese sauce. This was dessert. It was pretty good, but I'm sure it would have been better if I had followed the directions. I couldn't find candied cherries, or real cherry extract. I used sour dried cherries (I bet maraschino would have been better) and the imitation cherry extract that tastes like medicine. I missed in the ingredient list that I needed "cream sherry" so I used a concoction of sweet vermouth, brandy, rum, and red wine. I'm sure it was fine in the pudding, but it wasn't good in the sauce. So, next time I'll make this around Christmas time when I can find all the ingredients. DH and the kiddos liked it, but I didn't let the kids have any of the sauce, what with the wine in it. I wish I had just left the alcohol out of the sauce, because I didn't even like the taste of it. I only like the taste of alcoholic beverages when they've been cooked.