You know, I don't think it's measurements or basic ingredients that are the problem in comparing recipes from different countries, it's the prepared patent ingredients. (You wait till some Aussie gives you one with copha.) We have got that stuff, instant custard and so on. So I can now get on to the pralines.

Also instant semolina, which takes exactly the same amount of time to prepare as the non-instant, and doesn't taste as good, and Marks and Spencer has taken to selling, for about 70p ($1.50?) pre-prepared porage (with cream).

Chocolate Christmas Pudding.

Take a one pint pudding basin and partly fill it with dried vine fruits to your taste. Pour on some Cointreau, and let it soak in, stirring it until mostly absorbed. Add chopped candied peel, angelica, glace cherries, chocolat chips, flaked almonds or other nuts to fill the bowl. This part is entirely up to you. I hate currants, so don't use them, but I don't think the exact mix matters.

In a mixing bowl, stir together:

2 oz self raising flour 2 oz cocoa 2 oz white bread crumbs 2 oz white sugar 2 oz suet

Add the contents of the pudding basin, and mix well, add a little milk if necessary to bind it, coating all the fruit and largely filling the gaps.

Grease a 1 1/2 pint pudding basin and pour in the mixture. Cover with greaseproof paper and then foil, and steam gently for about four hours. Allow to cool and keep until Christmas Eve. Steam it again, and cool. Cook it again on Christmas Day. (I only know that the flavours worked better when it was reheated) Serve with any or all of chocolate sauce, Cointreau cream or butter, icecream with an orange flavour......

Liz, I'll get back to you when I've checked this with my sister. I wrote it down for her one day after serving it on Boxing Day, so it's closer to the invention, and that is the only hard copy.

Penny (no brown sugar this time)