Christmas pud with orange liqueur sauce recipe

This pudding is rich, fragrant with spices and packed with dried fruit. Top it off with a sinful hot orange liqueur sauce and you've got a Christmas pud that's deliciously different as well as being dairy- and gluten-free

Ingredients

• Pudding50g (1 3/4oz) dairy-free spread
• 50g (1 3/4oz) dark brown muscovado sugar
• 50g (1 3/4oz) rice flour
• 150g (5 1/2oz) ground rice
• 6g sachet easy blend yeast
• 1/2tsp mixed spice
• 1/2tsp ground cinnamon
• 1/2tsp ground nutmeg
• 300ml (1/2pt) orange juice
• 2tbsp orange liqueur
• 1 small apple, peeled and grated
• 375g (13oz) dried mixed fruit (currants, sultanas, dates, apricots etc)
• Grated rind of one lemon and one orange
• Orange liqueur sauce
• 25g (1oz) dairy-free spread
• 5tbsp corn flour or rice flour
• 600ml (1pt) soya or rice milk
• Peeled rind of an orange
• 3tbsp sugar or maple syrup
• 5tbsp orange liqueur

Method

1. Grease the 1 1/2ltr (2 3/4pt) pudding basin with a little dairy-free spread.
2. Mix sugar, rice flour, ground rice, yeast and spices together. Add the orange juice, margarine and apple. Mix together until smooth.
3. Add the dried fruit, grated lemon and orange rind, mix well.
4. Spoon the mixture into the pudding basin and tie on a double greaseproof lid. Steam for 2 hrs. Leave to cool and store until required. To reheat steam for 1hr.
5. For the sauce, blend some of the soya milk with the rice flour to make a runny paste. Put the remaining soya milk in a saucepan with the orange rind and sugar and heat slowly to infuse the milk for 10 mins. Stand for 5 minutes then sieve to remove the orange rind.
6. Put the milk into a saucepan and pour in the rice flour paste. Stir continuously until the mixture begins to thicken. Add the dairy-free spread and the orange liqueur and stir until blended. Serve hot over pudding.