When the legendary cook Joyce Molyneux owned the Carved Angel Restaurant in Dartmouth she made her wonderful, moist fruity-spicy Christmas puddings, based on an Eliza Acton recipe, so famous that she began selling them to customers in earthenware bowls, tied with muslin, later posting them out all around the country.

The Carved Angel changed to The New Angel, under chef John Burton-Race, but the famous Christmas pudding is still produced to the original recipe by a local company, along with two new puddings and the deep, old-fashioned tasting Carved Angel Christmas Cake, encircled with a band of muslin and ribbon, the top decorated simply with a disc of icing, etched with an angel and ringed with candied fruit. Both are being sold this year at Waitrose, or you can order them online, from £10 for a small pudding (serves 2-3); £20 for the cake (online, it can also be ordered in a blue hat box for £30). It is made in three sizes, from £10 for a small one to feed 2-3 people. 01822 835020; www.thecarvedangel.com.

George Hollywood at Georgie Porgie Puddings in Ottery St Mary, Devon set up his pudding company 13 years ago, at just 18 years old, with the help of the Princes Trust, in a “garage-sized room”. Now he produces 28,000-30,000 puddings each year, but each one is still made by him, personally, to a secret recipe he devised himself and keeps in his head.

The puddings range from an individual one (£3.30), which is a traditional shape, to larger round ones, the biggest being a 2.1kg one, which can feed 15 (£25.20). If you aren’t mad about traditional Christmas pudding he makes alternatives in flavours such as Orange & Cointreau and offers boxes of 12 little “Castle Puddings”, comprising strawberry jam, treacle, and spotted dick (£24). 01404 815561; www.georgieporgiespuddings.co.uk. You can also order through Forman & Field (0208 5252 352; www.formanandfield.com)

Expert View

A 'gay, brisk and sparkling wine' was being drunk in Britain 70 years before the oldest French champagne

Egon Ronay

• More

• Post a comment

How to cook turkey, game and other birds

Five top chefs show you how to prepare and cook something traditional - or a little different

BACKGROUND

• Go for goose

• The perfect Christmas roast turkey

• Turkey tops the Christmas table

• Roast goose

• Gordon Ramsay: how to cook goose

BACKGROUND

• Christmas trimmings are the stars

• Proper red cabbage

• Smashed brussels (aka bubble-to-be)

• Perfect roast potatoes

• Parsnip gratin

BACKGROUND

• Spiced cranberry sauce

• Food detective: Gravy

• Sage and onion stuffing with apricots

• Bread sauce

• Ask Anjum: Indian food at Christmas

Christmas puddings and cakes

We've hand picked the tastiest home-made Christmas cakes and puddings in Britain

• Kids' food expert: sprouts

• Christmas in a box

• Christmas: turkey, geese and poultry

BACKGROUND

• Blackberry cheesecake

• Poached figs with zabaglione

• Panettone ripieno

• Chocolate Christmas cake

• Lemon cheesecake

BACKGROUND

• Top of the pops: best sparkling wine for Christmas

• Ten top wine choices for festive gifts

• The perfect mulled wine

• Top 10 tips for a cut-price Christmas

• Where to do your festive food shopping

Related Links

• Kids' food expert: sprouts

• Christmas in a box

• Christmas: turkey, geese and poultry

Sisi Edmiston’s sumptuous Christmas cakes, made to “granny’s recipe” packed with fruit and nuts and very little flour, and laden with a topping of glazed fruit and nuts, have been a huge draw at farmers’ markets and Christmas Fairs for years.

"The secret is in sourcing very fresh fruit, which swells up full of cognac when you soak it. We don’t use currants, because they just don’t do that, and when the cake matures they can become bitter and gritty. Instead we double up on apricots and golden sultanas, which is expensive, but makes all the difference,” says Sisi.

The Edmiston sisters began selling online mainly in response to mothers asking for cakes to be sent to their sons and daughters working abroad, and particularly in the armed forces. At Christmas fairs (but not online), you can also buy undecorated cakes to ice yourself. “People do it with the children, turn the cakes into Santa’s Grotto and pretend they are their own,” she says. The classic 6inch square cake (up to 2kg) adorned with fruit and nuts is £55 by mail order. Details of Christmas fairs from the website. 07932 656898; www.thechristmascake.com

Former art student Isidora Popovic set up Popina (www.popina.co.uk) in 2000 selling her first hand-made biscuits and biscotti at Portobello Road market, and the bakery has since branched out into tarts and cakes, all made with organic ingredients. Their beautiful organic Christmas cakes, decorated with fruit and nuts are available at the John Lewis foodhall in Oxford Street, and through Abel & Cole (£15.99 for a small 900g cake; £29.99 for a large one, 1.9kg). Their beautiful ginger, orange and oat biscuits, “very chocolate” biscuits; walnut shortbread; and date, walnut, cinnamon and orange biscotti, plus festive tarts can be ordered through Forman & Field (0208 5252 352; www.formanandfield.com)

If the marzipan is your favourite part of the Christmas cake, then you might prefer to cut out the fruit altogether and indulge in Mrs. Gill’s “Wonderful Almond Cake”, which is what it says on the label: fantastically almondy, with a lovely sticky layer of proper marzipan shot through the middle (she also does a range of traditional cakes). 01884 242744; www.countrycakes.co.uk. The almond cake is available from Forman & Field (6in. £16.50).

At Burtree House Farm near Darlington, Lea Darling makes two traditional award winning Christmas puddings using the farm’s own free range eggs, English butter and organic cream from a neighbour’s herd of Friesans. “A good, home made pudding should be light, soft, crumbly and moist”, says Lea, who has converted many a dissenter plagued with memories of dense, heavy puddings.”You only need a couple of mouthfuls – but a good pudding, flamed, is just the best culmination to the Christmas meal.” Having said that, she also makes a range of alternative puddings all year round, which are also extremely popular at Christmas. You can choose from sticky toffee with sticky toffee sauce, rich toffee, made with the same base, but with pecan butterscotch sauce; ginger with ginger sauce and ginger pieces, chocolate with chocolate sauce; lemon with tangy lemon sauce and a new one, a syrup pudding with sticky syrup sauce…” the sauce mostly soaks in, so it is really very sticky”, says Lea. Often, she says, people buy a traditional pudding for the adults and, say, a chocolate one for the children - “however, the sticky toffee outsells the rest in a ratio of around three to one, no matter what time of year”. 01325 463521; www.burtreehousefarm.co.uk

Organic Christmas cakes and puddings can be sent out from the favourite shop of the smart set, Daylesford Organic (aswell as everything else, from goose, turkey and cranberry sauce to cheese). Their Christmas fruit cake (£19.95) is made with shredded almonds, brandy, ginger and spices, and they also make a wheat-free chocolate Christmas cake made with chestnut flour, raisins, sultanas, chopped prunes, walnuts, stem ginger, spiced rum and buttermilk (£21.95). You can buy boxes of mince pies, made with brandy, almonds and crystallized ginger, too – or they can send out mincemeat if you want to make your own. 0800 0831233; www.daylesfordorganic.com

Times Recommends

• Valentine Warner's summer recipes
• Jo Wood hosts a restaurant in her home
• Five ways with feta cheese