Christmas Pudding (Without the Pudding) with Marsala Syllabub

This has all the traditional flavours of Christmas pudding packed into a Marsala wine and orange jelly.

It is a delightfully cool dessert that slips down easily after a very rich main course. It also doubles up as a fruit compote on its own without the jelly, and can served either with the syllabub or spooned over vanilla ice cream.

The Delia Online Cookery School: Watch how to zest and juice citrus fruits in our video. Press the recipe image to play.

This recipe is from Delia's Happy Christmas. Serves 6-8

method
Ingredients

Method

All you do to start off with is place all the compote ingredients (except the almonds) in a medium casserole.

Place it over direct heat and bring to simmering point, then put a lid on and transfer it to the oven and leave to cook slowly for 3 hours. After that remove from the oven. Now, place the gelatine leaves in a bowl, cover with cold water and leave to soak for 5 minutes. After that squeeze the gelatine leaves and add to the hot compote, giving it a really good stir to distribute it evenly. Next add the nuts and orange juice, give it another good stir, and pour the mixture into the pudding basin then cool, cover and chill overnight, or until set.

For the syllabub, pour the Marsala into a bowl, add the sugar and leave aside for about 10 minutes to allow the sugar to dissolve. Then pour in the cream and whisk with an electric hand whisk until it stands in soft peaks.

Cover and chill until needed.

To serve, remove the jelly from the fridge, dip the outside of the dish very briefly into hot water to loosen the jelly from the sides, and use a palette knife to release it all the way round. Place a large, flat plate on top and invert the dish and plate, allowing a minute or two before carefully removing the dish to leave the jelly turned out on the plate. Serve it at the table, cut into slices, with the syllabub, which looks nice with a little nutmeg grated over it.