Look! It's my first ever little, delicious, Christmas Pudding!

In our family, it has always been one person's task to produce the Christmas Puddings for the remainder.

Now obviously, when we lived in Germany, it was a tad tricky for my Nanna to get a pudding to us for Christmas - so generally, we came back to England for Christmas and got our pudding that way.

However, for the years when we couldn't return to England, my Nanna sent her recipe to my Mum so that she could make the same pudding.

We really aren't sure where Nanna got her recipe from, as she was separated from her parents due to emigration to Canada.

It is possible that she could have asked her Mum for her recipe and received it by post during this time, or alternatively, she could have picked up a recipe from just about anywhere.

Unfortunately, she has been gone these last twenty years or so and we can't ask her.

As the years went by and my Nanna became less able to do the serious arm-work of stirring the puddings, my Mum took on the job.

The recipe remained the same for a number of years, until the awareness of health issues began to make themselves felt in changes to the old familiar recipe.

Things like using a sunflower margarine instead of suet, for instance. Also, people's tastes began to change and we all agreed that we really didn't like the candied citrus peel, so marmalade began to be used instead.

Then the recipe evolved a little further, in that the slow cooker had been introduced and made it so much easier to cook the puddings.

Far better to be able to steam them in the slow cooker, where it was unlikely to run out of water, than on the hob where you had to keep checking the water levels and couldn't leave the process alone for longer than half an hour.

This year, for the first year ever and following my Mum's comments that, last year, the making of the puddings was rather more taxing than ever before, I managed to convince her to hand the mantle over to me.

Doing a quick calculation on my fingers, it seems to me that the original recipe (still in my Nanna's own handwriting from where she sent it to my Mum all those years ago) has to be in excess of 100 years old. Knowing how - over the years - the recipe has evolved, made me want to add my little adjustment to it. My additional fingerprint in the ingredients. I love the thought that the puddings now have all our fingerprints - my Nanna, my Mum and myself - involved in the recipe.

I must admit that I threw all notions of making the puddings healthier, straight out of the window. Well, you eat Christmas Pudding just once a year (unless you cook one for Easter, which does happen!), so to have a richly indulgent Christmas Pudding is entirely right and proper.

So, my puddings were made with 100% butter. Changes to the recipe also included adding some Medjool dates - we'd found some at a local greengrocer and I'd been sent some even nicer ones to sample. They were so juicy and delicious, it just made sense to include them.

I also steeped the fruit in non-alcoholic Ginger cordial from The Dorset Ginger Company before mixing. This plumped up the fruit and added a lovely warmth to the base pudding flavour.

However, the biggest change to the puddings was that I didn't use flour in the recipe at all. The mix was made with 100% breadcrumbs, a mix of 60% white bread/40% wholemeal, which made a huge difference to the texture of the puddings.

Now I know how much difference it made, because I made a small tester pudding too! Well, when it's your first go, it pays to be on the cautious side.

I steamed the puddings individually in the slow cooker, each for 12 hours. The buttery, spicy juices overflowed slightly as the puddings cooked and the house was filled with gorgeous smells that tantalised in a most promising fashion.

The time came to try the tester pudding and my heart was in my mouth as I turned the ramekin upside down into the bowl. Would it come out in one piece, would it pour out disgustingly, or would it be like concrete? No!

The pudding was light textured - definitely not one that would stick your teeth together, as so many of them do. With juicy fruit, lovely spicing with the warmth from the ginger, the occasional flavour bomb in the shape of a whole cherry which seemed to have sucked up the Guinness stout and spiced rum into its hollow interior, soft prune, sticky date, earthy nuttiness and the richness of butter - it is a triumph.

I cannot begin to tell you, how relieved and happy I am that the puddings have turned out so well. Perhaps you can imagine! After all, I had 100 years of successful Christmas Pudding making behind me to live up to. That's fairly heavy responsibility, for someone about to change the recipe.

So, if you haven't yet made your Christmas Puddings and are looking for a richly indulgent, light textured pud with the wisdom of ages woven through its recipe, you can't go far wrong with this one.

Link to recipe Jenny Eatwell's Rhubarb & Ginger