Mich Turner's Penguin Chef Cake

When you want to celebrate Christmas and have some fun too, this is the cake for you. I just love the proud penguin chef standing beside his beautiful cake. I decided to make these cakes for my children's teachers, an amusing way to enjoy a Christmas pudding!

Traditional Christmas Pudding

  

If your are looking for a light Christmas pudding then I can recommend this recipe. I have for many years avoided the shop bought puddings because they are usually too dark, too short on fruit and too big on price, I this prefer lighter textured, non suet pudding for Christmas day, however, if this is too light for you, it will do perfectly for a St. Stephens Day or Boxing day Pudding. I found this recipe in the RTE Guide a couple of years ago, which I cut out and kept, it was a recipe from Stork Margarine and it is delicious, now a family tradition (well they have to start sometime!!)

It may seem like a lot of effort but, if you plan it out and steam on a day that nothing much else is going on, you might as well have two delicious puddings for your trouble. Make two and if you don't eat the second, well it will keep until next year, no problem. My original love for a light pudding came from my grandmother Kate Heffernan, which my mother made every year, so perhaps next year I might post up that recipe, I hope you enjoy this one for many years ahead.

Old Fashioned Bread and Butter Pudding

Now I suspect that for most this is a distant memory of Sunday desserts. I make it for more practical reasons, it's usually because a bread recipe hasn't worked out to my satisfaction or I suddenly find that fruit loaf I really meant to eat last week! In this recipe I used leftover sliced fruit loaf (pictured below)straight from my freezer and dunked everything on top leaving it to defrost/soak while the oven heated.

Tiramisu

This is quick to make and it's a non-alcoholic version of the traditional tiramisu, I like this recipe because it only uses one tub of mascarpone cheese so it is economical too.

Rice Pudding

This is one of those desserts that in my mind is worth making rather than buying in a can. My theory is this, give a man a can and he eats for one day but teach him how to make rice Pudding and he eats for a lifetime!

Serves 4

Ingredients
100g Pudding Rice
75g Sugar
600mls Full fat milk (or 400ml Can Coconut Milk plus 200ml full fat milk)
Vanilla Extract

Method
Place the rice in a sieve and rinse under cold water until the water runs clear.

Place all the ingredients into a small milk saucepan or similar and bring up to the boil, reduce the heat to a simmer. Stir occasionally to make sure the rice doesn't stick to the pan, cook for about 1 hour.

Serve at room temperature with a splash of cream, fresh fruit, fresh grated nutmeg or chocolate chips.