• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Feisty Tapas logo

  • Home
  • Instant Pot
    • Instant Pot Recipes
    • Instant Pot Duo Crisp Recipes
    • Instant Pot Tips and Tricks
  • Thermomix Recipes
  • Recipes with both Thermomix & Instant Pot
  • Air Fryer
  • Gadget-Free Recipes
  • About
  • Newsletter
  • Instant Pot® UK Community Recipe Index
menu icon
go to homepage
  • Pressure Cooker
  • Air Fryer
  • Thermomix
  • About
    • E-mail
    • Facebook
    • Instagram
    • Pinterest
    • YouTube
  • search icon
    Homepage link
    • Pressure Cooker
    • Air Fryer
    • Thermomix
    • About
    • E-mail
    • Facebook
    • Instagram
    • Pinterest
    • YouTube
  • ×
    Home » Instant Pot

    Catherine Phipps’ Pressure Cooker Christmas Pudding

    Published: Nov 20, 2021 · Modified: Mar 31, 2025 by Maria Bravo · This post may contain affiliate links · 7 Comments

    Jump to Recipe

    A classic of the British festive season is the Christmas Pudding, in this post I share Catherine Phipp's Pressure Cooker Christmas Pudding recipe as well as a video tutorial filmed when Catherine came to film at The Kitchen Gadget Hub.

    A pressure cooked Christmas Pudding show on a white and blue patterned plate on a brown surface with a standalone induction hob in the background with the pot of a pressure cooker on top

    Please note that this post is long so that you have every single detail you might need in one place as every year there are a lot of questions about how to pressure cook a Christmas Pudding and I don't want to be sending you around in circles.

    The blurb before the actual recipe is essential reading and it's laid out that way precisely so that you get all the information you need before you dive in.

    The photos will hopefully help but I strongly recommend watching the video too.

    You can use any recipe you like for Christmas Pudding, they all steam in the same way - just use the timing guide below for the different sizes of pudding basins.

    Jump to:
    • Ingredients
    • Instructions
    • Substitutions
    • Top Tip
    • Storage
    • Won’t the pudding go mouldy?
    • Equipment for a Pressure Cooker Christmas Pudding
    • How to make a foil sling to lower and lift the pudding basin
    • Why pressure cook your Christmas Pudding?
    • When to pressure cook it
    • How to eat a traditional British Christmas Pudding
    • How to serve Christmas Pudding
    • What can you do with left over Christmas pudding?
    • 📖 Recipe
    • Who is Catherine Phipps?

    Ingredients

    All Christmas Pudding ingredients shown on the counter
    • Dried fruit (in our Pressure Cooker Christmas Pudding video, Catherine and I used: raisins, sultanas, currants, chopped prunes, chopped pears, a mix of orange and lemon candied peel and yuzu, zest of one orange, we would have added quince too but to be honest we totally forgot!), all soaked in rum. A tip that Catherine got from Nigella Lawson years ago is adding marron glacés. 
    • Self-raising flour
    • Bread crumbs
    • Suet
    • Sugar
    • Grated apple
    • Eggs
    • Spices

    See recipe card, below, for exact quantities

    Instructions

    Mix all ingredients as per the instructions in the recipe card. Use a big mixing bowl.

    We used a 6 litre Instant Pot stainless steel inner pot as a mixing bowl and it was the perfect size.

    all the ingredients of a Christmas pudding seen mixed and ready to transfer to pudding basins

    Transfer to pudding basin or basins. We used two medium ones here.

    Cover with greaseproof paper.

    Catherine Phipps placing greaseproof paper with pleat on a pudding basin. On a table we can see two pudding basins with Christmas Pudding mix, one of the basins is yellow and the other one is white

    Form a pleat in the greaseproof paper.

    Tie with string or a elastic band.

    Greaseproof paper all secured.

    Greaseproof paper with a pleat being held in place to a pudding basin with a elastic band

    Pressure cook

    Pudding basins covered in greaseproof paper with a pleat ready to pressure cook inside an Instant Pot electric pressure cooker and a stove-top pressure cooker

    After the natural pressure release, remove the pudding basin carefully (a long handled trivet or a foil sling will be handy for this part). 

    You can leave your pressure cooker Christmas Pudding on Warm in your electric pressure cooker as long as you want really. 

    Once removed from the pressure cooker, let it cool down completely at room temperature.

    Store following the instructions below.

    Full cooking instructions are in the recipe card below, including how to reheat on Christmas Day.

    Tip:

    If you want to make sure that it’s cooked right through to the middle: use a thermometer probe like the Thermapen to make sure it’s at least 98ºC.

    It should be still at that temperature after a natural pressure release.

    If you leave it on keep warm for a few hours, that temperature will of course drop down.

    Substitutions

    • Suet: Catherine doesn’t advise vegetarian suet as it has palm oil. You get a much softer crumb if you use butter. She thinks it could be done with coconut oil, one to test!
    • Rum: play with other spirits of course! But the spiced flavour of rum is a winner.

    Either leave in the basin if you don’t need to use it or wrap up sterilised muslin followed by some thicker fabric - eg, tea towel.

    Top Tip

    Forgot to soak your dried fruit? Catherine has come up with a method to quickly soak dried fruit in a pressure cooker.

    From Catherine:

    It is more effective than soaking large amounts of fruit in the tiny amounts of liquid most recipes call for.

    This is the method I usually use for soaking.

    If you use this method, your fruit will be immediately plump and glossy.

    1. Simply put your dried fruit in the pressure cooker and add whatever liquid your recipe calls for. A general rule of thumb is 500g dried fruit needs around 150ml liquid to just cover it.
    2. Close, bring up to high pressure and immediately remove from the heat. In an electric pressure cooker this means programming 0 minutes.
    3. Allow to drop pressure naturally (natural pressure release, NPR).
    4. Stir in a couple more tablespoons of alcohol for flavour - it will absorb quickly in the residue heat - and leave to cool. It's now ready to use!

    Tip: This works not only with alcohol, but with other liquids too - I use it to soak fruit in tea for a tea bread.

    More Christmas Recipes

    Storage

    Better than cling film / foil / baking parchment.

    Or take it out of the pudding basing and wrap it, just make sure it has cooled down fully before you wrap it. And use very clean materials.

    The high alcohol content means that, as long as the pudding is stored properly, it can keep for a long time.

    Tip to sterilise muslin:

    Scald the muslin with boiling water. Wring it out. Dry it. Use it.

    Won’t the pudding go mouldy?

    It seems mould can happen above all when using greaseproof paper and foil or materials that are not very clean, also when the pudding hasn't been stored when totally cool and dry.

    You have to ensure the Christmas Pudding is dry before you put it away, then wrap in greaseproof and foil or a sterilised muslin…

    Then check it after a few days and rewrap in fresh greaseproof and foil if that's what you used as, of course, fabric is more breathable but no harm rewrapping in sterilised muslin again too!

    If you do this your puds will keep for years. Although this paranoid Spaniard reckons eat it before 6 months.

    Equipment for a Pressure Cooker Christmas Pudding

    This recipe is enough to fill:

    • 2 x 750 ml or 1 litre basins
    • 1 x large 1.5 litre basins
    • 8-10 mini basins

    This recipe will also halve easily. Just stick to the timings above for the size of your pudding basin.

    You need at least a 6 litre / quart pressure cooker for the largest size. 

    We used an electric pressure cooker and a stove-top pressure cooker for the video:

    • Catherine used a WMF Perfect Pressure Cooker 4.5 litre
    • I used the Instant Pot Duo Crisp 8 litre 

    Catherine used the WMF

    We used two 1 litre basins for the video.

    • A white Mason Cash pudding basin, this one was Catherine's
    • A yellow The Kitchen Pantry Pudding Basin which I bought locally at Cutlacks in Ely (yes, I bought it because it's pretty!)

    There are lidded pudding basins that are metallic and plastic pudding basins, I don't really trust the latter as the lids have been known to warp under pressure.

    Three things to look at when buying a pudding basin are:

    • diameter (needs to be 2 centimetres smaller in diameter than your inner pot or the inside of your pressure cooker for the steam to circulate safely)
    • height (can't be too high for your pressure cooker and it definitely cannot sit against the valves for your safety!
    • handles, does it have handles? are they accounted for in the diameter?

    As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases, you don’t pay a penny extra though.

    My advice is to get a medium basin so that you can pressure cook my Chocolate Pudding!

    Although the mini ones are also handy for my Spanish Flan de Huevo. And for my Air Fryer Egg Pots.

    Okay, get both medium and mini pudding basins!

    How to make a foil sling to lower and lift the pudding basin

    Take a long length of foil and fold twice, lengthways, so it is 4 ply. 

    You will end up with a very sturdy length of foil which you can use to lower your pudding into the pressure cooker. 

    If using the foil, place the pudding in the centre of it and lift it into the pressure cooker, placing either on a trivet or onto a folded up piece of cloth - it is not necessary for the basin to be suspended above the water

    Or you can use a trivet, preferably a sturdy one with long handles

    Join my Pressure Cooking UK with Feisty Tapas Facebook group

    Why pressure cook your Christmas Pudding?

    Traditionally, Christmas puddings are boiled on the stovetop for 8 hours, continuously releasing steam into your kitchen and having to keep an eye on the water level.

    With a pressure cooker, there’s hardly any evaporation, hardly any steam being released into the kitchen and, with electric pressure cookers, no babysitting involved so you can just leave it to do its thing from beginning to end.

    When to pressure cook it

    Stir-Up Sunday is, traditionally, the day Christmas Pudding is made!

    Do an online search for Stir-Up Sunday to find out the exact date.

    Everyone in the family takes turns stirring the pudding and makes a wish.

    It gives the pudding a few weeks to mature before Christmas Day.

    Tip: Pressure cooking your Christmas Pudding nearer Christmas Day? 

    Cooking it longer means you can reduce the maturing time as you’re getting more flavour in during the cooking process.

    Join my Kitchen Gadgetry with Feisty Tapas group, click here

    How to eat a traditional British Christmas Pudding

    Every family has a different way of eating it.

    In Catherine’s family, they place a sprig of holly on the top, foil-wrapped so not to put it directly in the pudding as it’s toxic.

    And they flame it, which is very important.

    Another tip from Nigella Lawson, this time for flaming: use vodka.

    Vodka is the spirit that burns best, the longest and creates the bluest flame.

    Heat a ladle full of vodka over a flame or in a small saucepan. Pour it over the pudding. Turn down the lights. Sit and watch it burn.

    How does YOUR family eat Christmas pudding?

    How to serve Christmas Pudding

    However you like.

    With rum sauce, cream, ice cream, brandy butter…

    Tip: How to make brandy butter

    Melt together sugar, butter and alcohol. You can add a bit of cream if you want a rich creamy one but Catherine loves the sugar and butter.

    You don’t have to use brandy for brandy butter. Catherine Phipps loves using rum.

    Calvados is really nice if you’ve used apples in your pudding.

    Christmas pudding is quite alcoholic so, if you don’t drink very much, go easy. It’s very rich anyway so you will only need a little bit.

    Maria Bravo from Feisty Tapas filming with Catherine Phipps at The Kitchen Gadget Hub. Maria is on the left, wearing a dark jumper with polka dots, next to an Instant Pot Duo Crisp and Catherine is on the right wearing a stripy top and a blue cardigan. They're both smiling and looking at each other

    What can you do with left over Christmas pudding?

    Fry it! Catherine says that it’s great fried. Or in trifle.

    Catherine loves to cut slices of it or crumble it up and heat butter and sugar or maple syrup (or your choice of sweetenerI).

    Fry it in a frying pan until it goes crispy round the edges and then eat that with big piles of creme fraiche.

    Or with fried sliced apples or apple compote.

    Or put it in a warm trifle.

    So, instead of a chilled trifle, use the Christmas pudding, you have to work quickly so you’ve got your regular layers in but put the fried Christmas pudding layer in the middle of it.

    The other Christmas Pudding Trifle layers would be:

    • a sponge layer
    • sherry
    • Amaretti biscuits
    • A layer of fruit (poached pears or mandarins, even tinned mandarins or Spanish jarred mandarins)
    All my Pressure Cooker Recipes

    📖 Recipe

    Finished Christmas Pudding turned onto a white and blue patterned plate on a brown surface with pressure cookers in the background

    Catherine Phipps’ Pressure Cooker Christmas Pudding

    Catherine Phipps
    One of the biggest time savers - and water savers too - is making steamed puddings in the pressure cooker. You can use any recipe you like for Christmas Pudding, they all steam in the same way - just use the timing guide below.
    5 from 2 votes
    Print Recipe Pin Recipe Save Recipe Recipe Saved!
    Prevent your screen from going dark
    Prep Time 10 minutes mins
    Total Time 2 hours hrs
    Course Dessert
    Cuisine British

    Equipment

    • This recipe is enough to fill 2 x 750ml basins, 1 x large 1.5l basins or 8-10 mini basins, but it will halve easily. You need at least a 6l pressure cooker for the largest size.

    Ingredients
      

    • 500 g dried fruit raisins, sultanas, currants, chopped prunes, pears, dried blueberries, glacé cherries etc
    • 75 g candied peel finely chopped (I buy or make large pieces and finely chop, the flavour is much better)
    • 175 ml rum or brandy
    • 125 g self-raising flour
    • 1 teaspoon cinnamon
    • ½ teaspoon allspice
    • ¼ teaspoon ground cloves
    • ¼ teaspoon ground cardamom
    • ¼ teaspoon ground mace
    • 150 g fresh breadcrumbs
    • 175 g shredded suet
    • 175 g dark muscovado sugar
    • 4 eggs
    • 150 g grated quince or apple or a mixture of both don’t worry if you have more of one than the other (you can easily go over this quantity of grated fruit)
    • zest of 1 orange

    Instructions
     

    Soak the dried fruit

    • First, either soak your dried fruit in the rum over night or quick soak in the pressure cooker, using just 150ml of the rum and adding the remaining 25ml when you remove the lid.

    Mix the ingredients

    • Mix all the remaining ingredients together with a generous pinch of salt, then add the fruit. Get every member of the family to stir and make a wish, then pile into pudding basins, making sure you have pushed the mixture down well to reduce the risk of air pockets.

    Use a sling or long-handled trivet / steam rack

    • Use a sturdy trivet with handles or fold a pleat into foil or baking parchment and secure around the top of the basin - you can tie with string, making a handle at the same time, or just fix into place with an elastic band.
      If not making a handle with string, take a long length of foil and fold twice, lengthways, so it is 4 ply. You will end up with a very sturdy length of foil which you can use to lower your pudding into the pressure cooker.
    • If using the foil, place the pudding in the centre of it and lift it into the pressure cooker, placing either on a trivet or onto a folded up piece of cloth - it is not necessary for the basin to be suspended above the water.

    Pressure cook

    • Add around 3 cm water to the base of the cooker. The exact amount of water will depend on the diameter of your pressure cooker.
    • Bring up to high pressure (in electric pressure cookers press Pressure Cook or Manual and programme the time).
    • Mini puddings: 40 minutes
      Medium pudding: between 1.5-2 hours, depending how dark you like it
      Large pudding: 3 hours
    • Allow to drop pressure naturally, cool completely and leave somewhere cool and dark until you are ready to eat it. Read the how to store instructions in this post.

    How to reheat

    • To reheat on Christmas Day, see How to reheat a Christmas Pudding in the Pressure Cooker for all the details you need as to the "how". Below are the basic timings:
      Small puddings: 10 minutes at high pressure
      Medium and large puddings: 30 minutes at high pressure
    Keyword allspice, breadcrumbs, candied peel, Christmas, Christmas Pudding, cinnamon, dried fruit, festive, muscovado sugar, pudding, raisins, self-raising flour, sultanas
    Tried this recipe?Mention @feistytapas or tag #feistytapas!
    Share on Facebook

    Who is Catherine Phipps?

    An expert in pressure cookers with a big focus on stove-top pressure cookers, Catherine Phipps lives in London with her family.

    Make sure you follow her on Instagram and Twitter.

    Catherine Phipps’ Books

    Modern Pressure Cooking: The Comprehensive Guide to Stovetop and Electric Cookers, with Over 200 Recipes (launching March 2022)

    The Pressure Cooker Cookbook: Over 150 Simple, Essential, Time-Saving Recipes (one of my most recommended pressure cooking books) 

    79

    More All of the Feisty Tapas Instant Pot recipes in one place

    • Photo of the homemade Clotted Cream being drained after chilling
      Easy Instant Pot Clotted Cream
    • Photo of pressure cooked haggis on a white plate with an Instant Pot Duo in the background
      How to pressure cook Haggis
    • Photo of a Christmas Pudding sitting on the greaseproof paper it was previously wrapped in
      How to reheat Christmas Pudding in a Pressure Cooker
    • Photo of an Instant Pot Duo with the Steam button lit up and the words HOW TO STEAM IN A PRESSURE COOKER OR INSTANT POT written over it
      How to steam in an Instant Pot electric pressure cooker

    About Maria Bravo

    Kitchen Gadget Geek extraordinaire. Tester of all things kitchen appliance. Clumsy cook, if I can't break it and get the most of it, you know that's a good kitchen gadget! Architect of online communities for kitchen gadget lovers

    Reader Interactions

    Comments

    1. Jonathan says

      November 29, 2021 at 11:26 am

      5 stars
      Thanks, this is comparable to Delia Smith's non-pressure cooker recipe in terms of quantities so was looking for how to adapt it.

      Other recipes for steamed puddings in the Instant Pot recommend steaming with the valve open for 15mins rather than going straight to pressure. Not sure why but wondered if you had any problems going straight to full pressure. Thanks

      Reply
      • Maria says

        November 29, 2021 at 12:27 pm

        Hi Jonathan, the pre-steaming phase is necessary for other puddings that actually rise but Christmas Pudding doesn't rise very much so we can bypass it. That allows us to release less steam into the kitchen and also makes life easier. Hope that helps, Maria

        Reply
        • Brian says

          December 07, 2022 at 9:16 pm

          Hi Maria, Thanks for explaining that part about not pre-steaming the pudding. I've been using a stove-top pressure cooker to steam my Christmas puddings for a few years now, and I had never pre-steamed them. But, today, I read another post that recommended pre-steaming for 30 minutes in the pressure cooker (with the pot not being pressurized for that duration.) I'm glad of your explanation, as I am steaming my puddings today (in the pressure cooker). Thanks so much. Your recipe looks delicious, and I'm sure it is loved by all. Merry Christmas, and thanks again.

          Reply
    2. Bryan says

      October 29, 2023 at 12:23 pm

      5 stars
      Thank you. It's been a while since I used the IP and even longer since I made my own Christmas puddings so the two of you have inspired me. Used your method and timings with a few ingredient substitutions to make two lovely looking puddings. I'm tempted to give my smaller pudding a try before Christmas - just to make sure 🙂 Now delving through the rest of your website to see what I can make next.

      Reply
      • Maria Bravo says

        October 31, 2023 at 5:51 pm

        So glad Bryan! Let me know what you try next 😊 Maria

        Reply
    3. Fran says

      November 02, 2024 at 11:34 pm

      Hi, i followed the recipe but when the pressure cooking was complete the top looked wet and a skewer didn’t come out clean so i put it back in to pressure cook for 30 more minutes. Will this be ok? Not sure if the pudding will be dried out or if I’ve damaged it with the drop then rise back up in pressure.

      Reply
      • Maria Bravo says

        November 04, 2024 at 9:11 am

        Hi Fran, these things are pretty much indestructible, I would not worry, it will be totally fine! Hope that helps, Maria

        Reply

    Leave a Reply Cancel reply

    Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

    Recipe Rating




    Primary Sidebar

    Hi, I'm Maria! A food blogger passionate about kitchen gadgets and their power to make life easier and tastier.

    More about me →

    Popular

    • Photo of a white rectangular enamel dish full of cheesy loaded nachos
      Loaded Air Fryer Nachos - Quick, Cheesy and totally Moreish
    • Photo from above of the Quick Chilli for Nachos in the Thermomix seen after air frying over tortilla chips in the Ninja Speedi
      Ninja Speedi Nachos
    • Photo of the bean chilli seen inside the bowl of the Ninja Speedi
      Ninja Speedi Bean Chilli - Perfect for a quick and tasty dinner
    • Photo from above of Nachos air fried in the Ninja Speedi on a liner using a quick bean chilli made in the Thermomix
      Quick Bean Chilli for Nachos in the Thermomix

    Footer

    ↑ back to top

    As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

    About Maria

    • Privacy Policy

    Newsletter

    • Sign Up! for emails and updates

    Copyright © 2011-2025

    Copyright © 2025 Feisty Tapas on the Cravings Pro Theme