• Start by preparing your ingredients. Preheat the oven to 200°C (Gas mark 6/390°F). Roughly slice up the loaf and place the slices on a large baking tray. Pop into the oven and bake until toasted and brown all over – timings will vary according to how fresh the bread is.
• Once toasted, take the bread out of the oven and leave to cool. Once cool, weigh out the slices to 225g – you may have a little extra. Whizz up 225g of the toasted bread into bread crumbs using a food processor or blender. Tip into a very large bowl (I used a tall sided stock pot for mixing without too much mess!).
• Prepare the carrot and cooking apple. The original recipe called for ‘minced’ carrot and cooking apple, but I whizzed them up in my Vitamix until finely chopped – you could also grate them if you don’t have access to a food processor. Add the minced carrot and apple to the bowl with the bread crumbs.
• Chop the dates or prunes and almonds and add them to the bowl. You could also throw them in the food processor to quickly chop them as you have it out already.
• Add the rest of the dry ingredients; raisins, sultanas, currants, suet, soft brown sugar, self raising flour, baking powder, ground nutmeg, mixed spice, ground ginger, cinnamon and salt to the bowl. Stir well to combine.
• Break the eggs and add to the bowl. Zest and juice the lemon and add to the bowl. Add the brandy and sherry and stir the mixture well to combine.
• Add 150ml of the dark ale to the mixture and stir well. If the mixture is too dry or stiff, add a little more ale until the pudding mixture has a moist consistency.
• Cover the bowl and leave for 24 hours to mature. After 24 hours, it will be ready to basin up. You may need to add a little more ale at this point if the mixture is too dry, so keep some on stand by just in case.
• Before putting the mixture into basins, call the family together and ask every member of the family to stir the pudding mixture, each making a special Christmas wish for the year ahead as they do so. Add the silver six pence to the mix and stir again until hidden**. Once the children are out of sight, I must admit I retrieve the six pence and hide it away until Christmas rather than bake it in the pudding. I then hide it on one of the bowls to be covered by a slice of pudding when serving (see notes below!).
• Tradition of adding a silver sixpence to your Chistmas Pudding Mix - with traditional Christmas Pudding Recipe

To prepare the basins:

• Use 2 x 1.5L basins. Grease with lard. Place a small disc of non-stick paper at bottom of each basin.
  
• Fill with Christmas pudding mixture to approx 1 inch (2.5 cms) below the top. Put a greased circle of non-stick paper (the size of the top of the basin) over the pudding.
• Cut a large square of greaseproof paper to go over whole of the basin. Put a fold into the paper to allow room for steam to expand (see photo). Put a pudding cloth or a square of tin foil on top of this.
• Tie round with string and then tie ends of pudding cloth, trimming greaseproof paper neatly. If you are using tin foil rather than a pudding cloth, tie a string handle to the rest of the string for ease of lifting the bowl when steaming (see photo below)
• If you prefer to use the plastic boil-able pudding basins, follow above up to topping with the folded paper then push on lid tightly and trim the greaseproof paper.
• The puddings will now need to be steamed for 6 hours. To steam your Christmas puddings, place a trivet, upturned saucer or heat safe ramekin in the bottom of a large stock pot (to keep the pudding basin away from direct contact with the base of the pan). Fill with boiling water to about ⅛th full. Place a pudding in the stock pot and check that the water level is to around half-way up the side of the pudding basin.
• Put on the lid and steam at a gentle simmer for 6 hours. Keep an eye on the water to make sure that the pan doesn’t boil dry and add more water from the kettle to keep it topped up if needed.
• Alternatively, you can also steam your Christmas puddings in a slow cooker – as above, keep the pudding basin away from direct contact with the base of the pan with a trivet, saucer or ramekin, fill with water to half-way up the side of the pudding basin, place the lid on tightly and steam on high for 8 hours (great for steaming overnight!).
• Or you could use the oven method to steam them; Preheat the oven to 160°C (Gas mark 3/320°F). Stand the pudding basin(s) in a deep roasting tin, fill with hot water to approx. half way up the puddings(s). Cover the whole roasting tin with a tent of tin foil and cook for 6 hours.
• Once steamed, cool the puddings then store them in a cool dry cupboard for up to two months until needed.
• On Christmas Day, steam the pudding for a further 1 ½ hours before turning out onto a plate. Dust with icing sugar and a sprig of holly to decorate, or alternatively, splash over brandy and light before serving. Our family tradition is to turn off all the lights in the house so that we can enjoy the full effect of our fiery Christmas pudding!