Plum Puddings for Christmas.

[Thipu1]

I've never heard of "hard sauce" , so I googled it. It sounds like what is called brandy butter here.

Yes, hard sauce is similar to brandy butter.  It's white, thick and sweet but has a definite alcoholic kick.  I don't know if it's even legal to sell the stuff in grocery stores here these days. 

[Free Range Hippy Chick]

Somebody needs to organise a major Christmas Pudding Sauce tasting. I just went 'white? WHITE? If that's white it's not at all like brandy butter, it can't have half enough brandy in' before it occurred to me that it was probably made with white sugar. My brandy butter is dark brown sugar, butter and as much brandy as you can get in without the whole thing splitting. And still DH doesn't like it... I like it with hot mince pies too.

(Wonders about adding something from the Pimp My Christmas spice jar to brandy butter.)

[doodlemor]

When I was newly married many years ago I made Christmas puddings for DH and his family from his grandmother's recipe, in her memory.  Grandma had been born in England, and we always assumed that this was a family recipe.

I remember that it had dates, chopped suet, and probably nuts.  I bought some pretty molds and steamed it for hours.  I served it with a sauce made from orange juice and rind, sugar, and cornstarch, because that is what Grandma had done.

I think that I stopped making it when I discovered that the date cake recipe in my Better Homes and Gardens cookbook tasted nearly the same when I put the sauce on top, and was much easier and less messy to the stove top.

Maybe I'll get the recipe out and try this again.  It certainly was delicious!