Christmas at Rachel’s Pudding Pantry

by Caroline Roberts

This is a lovely Christmas book to read. It’s easy to read and it has some really funny parts in it that will make you laugh out loud, no matter where your reading it. I haven’t read the first book in the series, but you really don’t need to.

Meet Rachel Swinton of Primrose Farm, single mother, farmer and brains to her new enterprise the “Pudding Pantry”. Which Rachel and her mother Jill opened earlier in the year in hope of getting their family farm back in the black, as it’s was running very much in the red.

During the summer months the pudding pantry did a roaring trade, with passing holiday makers, hikers and the locals. But over the last couple of months the passing trade has dropped off and the only customers coming to the pudding pantry now are loyal locals.

So Rachel needs to come up with a way to keep the farm out of the red, and get people in to the pudding pantry. One afternoon while she was picking up her daughter and friend, from the after school gymnastics club. Rachel found she had an idea brewing, she just needed to discuss it with her mother Jill, as it would be Jill who the extra baking would fall on.

Rachel’s idea was to hold a pudding club every fortnight, where people could talk about baking, swap ideas and recipes, as well as a tasting session. They could then also purchase some of the puddings that the pantry already made and sold.

After both of them decided that it was a good idea to try, Rachel worked on a flyer and asked the local deli if they minded handing them out for her. As they already sold some of their puddings on a regular basis.

Rachel also took a pudding into the local newspaper as a bribe, so they would hopefully print a small feature about the new pudding club and boost interest with the locals.

After the first pudding club things get busy on the farm, as a snow storm hits them and they have to rescue their sheep out in the fields due to the snow drifts that the sheep would be trapped in. As the snow melts Rachel finds herself busier and busier leaving he no spare time to see Tom.

Tom owns the next farm to Rachel’s. Their relationship is still quite new and fragile and with Rachel’s time so limited things are looking rocky. Can Rachel rescue the farm and the pudding pantry, as well as her new relationship with Tom?

As I’ve already said this is an easy funny read, which also has some wonderful Christmas pudding recipes in it. I know that I will be trying out some of these recipes at Christmas and I’m sure I won’t be the only one either.

Pages: 400, Publication Date: 31 October 2019, My Rating: