Crockpot Cooking: 3 Slow Cooker Christmas Recipes

The weather is getting colder and Christmas is around the corner, it’s time to get the crockpot heated with these slow cooker Christmas Recipes.

1) Crockpot Mulled Wine

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What could be more festive than the smell and taste of Christmas in a glass, eh? If you want to get people in the mood for Christmas, invite them over for a glass or two of delicious mulled wine served with torn chunks of fresh bread, brie and cranberry sauce!

The best thing about serving mulled wine to your friends at a party is that you can use ridiculously cheap wine and they won’t know the difference! Crockpots are perfect for slowly mulling wine. The slow cooking and low heat allows the flavours of the fruit, sugar and spices to mingle beautifully with cheap the red wine to produce a full and exotic flavour.

You can get home from work on a Friday night and sling all the ingredients into the pot for 2-3 hours while you go and have a soak in the bath and prepare for when your friends start to arrive for your end of week Christmassy get-together. Minimal effort, minimal expense, great times!

Ingredients:

  • 2 bottles cheap red wine.
  • 1 lemon.
  • 1 sliced orange.
  • 6 tbsp honey/sugar.
  • dash of ground ginger.
  • 2 cinnamon sticks.
  • a few cloves.
  • a pinch of mixed spice.
  • 4 tbsp brandy (optional)

Recipe:

  1. Pre-heat your slow cooker on HIGH for 20 minutes.
  2. Pour the wine into the warm cooker.
  3. Peel the zest from the lemon in strips, then squeeze the lemon juice and add it with the zest to the wine.
  4. Add the rest of the ingredients EXCEPT the brandy if using.
  5. Replace lid on the crockpot and cook on LOW for 2-3 hours.
  6. Stir in the brandy, if using, just before serving.

2) Slow Cooker Raspberry Poached Pears

poached pear

A fancy, not to mention sweet addition to your Christmas celebrations can be knocked up in your crockpot in less than two hours. You can leave this yummy dessert simmering away while you enjoy your main meal, drinks, nibbles and Christmas party mingling.

I think warm poached pears add a sense of class and elegance to a meal, don’t you? Deliciously sweet and light on the stomach; they look amazing too! You can serve them with a yummy vanilla essence clotted cream, which goes down so smoothly your guests will certainly want seconds!

Ingredients:

  • 1/3 cup caster sugar.
  • 2 cups apple, cranberry and raspberry juice.
  • 4 medium packham pears, peeled.
  • 1 vanilla bean, split.
  • 150g frozen raspberries.
  • Double or clotted cream mixed with vanilla essence, to serve.

Recipe:

  1. Pre-heat the crockpot.
  2. Combine the sugar and juice in a saucepan over medium heat. Cook, stirring, for 5 minutes or until sugar has dissolved.
  3. Place the pears in the bowl of a 5 litre slow-cooker.
  4. Pour over syrup and add the vanilla bean.
  5. Put the lid on and keep the slow-cooker on HIGH. Cook for 1 hour 15 minutes or until pears are almost tender, turning halfway through cooking.
  6. Add raspberries. Cook for 15 minutes or until the pears are tender. Serve pears with syrup, raspberries and cream.

3) Crockpot Christmas pudding

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Ideally you should make your homemade Christmas pudding in October and leave it to mature until Christmas, but there is nothing stopping you from making it now, in your slow cooker.

Making your own Christmas pudding will certainly be something to boast about and look forward to on the big day! Not everybody likes Christmas pudding, but there is something to be said about tradition, especially in these commercially-driven times. So put the effort in this Christmas, to keep the traditional spirit of the season alive.

Ingredients:

  • 1 orange
  • 1/2 cup brown sugar
  • 3 eggs
  • 1 cup Guinness
  • 1 1/4 cups flour
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1 teaspoon mixed spice
  • 1/2 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
  • 1 3/4 cups stale breadcrumbs
  • 1 large cooking apple, (about 8 ounces) peeled, cored, and finely chopped
  • 6 ounces shredded suet
  • 1/2 cup finely chopped whole almonds
  • 1 cup golden raisins
  • 1 3/4 cups currants
  • 2 cups raisins

Recipe:

  1. Place a saucer upside down in the bottom of two slow cookers.
  2. Spray 2 6 cup pudding basins or ceramic bowls (or one standard 8 cup pudding basin and a 1 quart ceramic bowl) liberally with non-stick spray. Cut a piece of parchment the size of the bottom of the basins or bowls; set aside.
  3. Grate the zest of the orange into a large mixing bowl; juice the orange into a measuring cup and add additional water to make 1/2 cup.
  4. Pour the juice into the mixing bowl along with the brown sugar, eggs, and Guinness; mix well.
  5. Add the flour, salt, mixed spice, nutmeg, apple, suet, and almonds.
  6. Mix until well incorporated, and then fold in the golden raisins, currants, and raisins.
  7. Divide the batter among the two prepared basins or bowls, filling them 2/3-3/4 full.
  8. Place the parchment directly on top of the pudding.
  9. Cover both moulds tightly with foil, then top with the pudding basin lids. If using bowls, just use a double layer of foil.
  10. Place each of the puddings in a slow cooker. Pour about 4 inches of hottest tap water into the slow cookers, put on the lids, and let cook on high 5-7 hours.
  11. Remove the puddings from the slow cooker, unwrap, and invert onto a serving plate.
  12. Serve with warm custard or hard sauce.

How Did Your Crockpot Recipes Turn Out?

Let us know if you have any cooking tips or tricks to make these recipes even better!

Cover photo: melissahartfiel.com

About the author

Zara M.

I love to write, draw, take photographs, dance tango, write in my Midori Traveler’s Notebook and ogle other people’s Filofaxes. Oh – and I like LOTS of sugar in my tea! I want to inspire you, and show you the world through my eyes.

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