Nigella Lawson has shared a delicious recipe for her ‘ultimate’ Christmas pudding, which will delight your guests this festive season.

In her 2008 recipe book Nigella Christmas, the celebrity chef shared numerous festive dishes, including this Christmas dessert, which she labelled the “Queen of Christmas puddings.”

Promoting the recipe, even to those who don’t typically opt for a Christmas pudding, Nigella explained that she soaked the dry fruit in Pedro Ximénez sherry, which gave the pudding a deliciously unique twist.

She wrote: “I know that many of you, tradition be damned, are resistant to Christmas pudding, and I do understand why. But you must try this.

“For until you do, you probably think all that dried fruit is, well, dry, and the pudding heavy. Yet this is far from the case: the fruit is moist and sticky, and the pudding mystifyingly, meltingly light.”

Method

Place the currants, sultanas and prunes into a bowl with the Pedro Ximénez, give the mixture a swirl and cover with clingfilm. Leave to steep overnight or for up to one week.

Once the fruits have finished steeping, put a large pan of water on to boil, and butter a heatproof plastic pudding basin, remembering to grease the lid too.

In a large mixing bowl, combine all the other ingredients (except the vodka). Then add in the steeped fruits, scraping in every last drop of liquor and mix to combine thoroughly.

At this point, you can fold in cola-cleaned coins or heirloom charms if you’re planning a surprise on Christmas day, but this can be skipped over if this is not the plan.

Scrape and press the mixture into the prepared pudding basin, squish it down and put on the lid, you can then wrap this in a layer of foil if you are concerned about the lid popping.

Then place the basin in a pan of boiling water, so that the water comes halfway up the basin, or in the top of a lidded steamer, and leave to steam for five hours, checking every so often that the water has bubbled away.

After five hours have passed, remove the pudding from the steaming and unwrap the foil if used, then put the pudding aside until Christmas Day.

On Christmas Day, rewrap the pudding, keep it in the basin, and steam it again for three hours.

To serve remove the pan or steamer and take off the lid of the basin, put a plate on top, turn it upside down and give the plastic basin a little squeeze to help unmould the pudding. Then, remove the basin.

Place a sprig of holly on the top of the pudding if desired. Heat the vodka in a small pan, removing as soon as it heats up as allowing it to boil will burn off the alcohol. After turning off the heat strike a match, stand back and light the pan of vodka, then pour the flaming vodka over the pudding.