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December 3, 2014

The French President Charles de Gaulle is said to have remarked ‘How can you govern a country which has 246 cheeses?’

If he found the thought of governing France daunting then what would he have made of Britain – a country which has more than 5000 different beers?

In case you need an excuse to drink more beer, there is a new campaign running to encourage the public to think of matching their food with beer.

Promoted by Britain’s Beer Alliance, a cross-industry group of brewers, pub companies and beer organisations, the campaign is called There’s A Beer For That. You can follow it on Twitter: @BeerForThat 

Cooking with beer

As part of the campaign, the organisers have come up with some recipes which use beer.

The 5pm Dining blog was intrigued by the thought of beer-laced turkey stuffing but we couldn’t quite get our head around the idea of beer-infused festive doughnuts.

In the end, we thought we would share this recipe for Christmas pud made with stout.

Christmas pudding with stout

Christmas pudding? There's a beer for that.
Christmas pudding? There’s a beer for that.

Ingredients:

(Serves 8 to 10)

350g seedless raisins

225g sultanas

150ml stout

4 tbsp brandy

3 figs, chopped into small pieces

3 apricots, chopped into small pieces

4 prunes, chopped into small pieces

30g chopped almonds

1 carrot, peeled and grated

1 apple peeled, cored and grated

175g plain flour, sifted

2 tsp ground mixed spice

175g dark muscovado sugar

2 eggs, beaten

Method:

Place the dried fruit, almonds, carrots and apple into a non-metallic bowl. Pour in the stout, cover with clingfilm and leave overnight.

Sift the flour and spices together. Add to the fruit mixture, together with the breadcrumbs, sugar and eggs. Mix well.

Pour the mixture into one large 1.4 litre bowl or two smaller ones.

Cover the bowl with a large square of pleated greaseproof paper. On top of this place a piece of pleated foil. If using a round Christmas bomb mould, simply grease the surface.

Secure the papers by tying a piece of string lightly around the top of the bowl.

Stand the pudding on a trivet in a large pan with a tight fitting lid.

Steam for 3 hours, topping up with boiling water as necessary.