So, was it worth all the hype?

Rarely can a thirty second television commercial have caused such panic among shoppers and supermarket managers alike, but the impact of Heston Blumenthal's advert back in November for his Christmas pud showed that there are times when the nations cooks rise up as one and head for their local Waitrose.

The must-have culinary craze this year was Heston's Hidden Orange Christmas Pudding, priced at £13.99 or up to £200 on e Bay if you happened to want one after the middle of November. What made this pudding an object of desire was the candied orange in the centre.

So how did it actually taste? Well it looks like a pudding and smells like a pudding but when you cut it open there was a whole orange inside. The orange juices began to flow from the moment the knife was inserted into the pudding and once placed in a dish it was then a question of what should accompany it. I went for cream and I have to say that it complimented the moist confection perfectly. I cannot remember ever having tasted a shop bought pudding so moist, the fruit and nuts tasted wonderful and the pudding itself was light and you weren't left afterwards with that dreadful sense of guilt and porkiness that Christmas puddings often leave.

Was it worth the £13.99? Well yes, it was a once a year special treat but quite why somebody would want to cough up £200 or more is a mystery, I mean if you have that sort of money to spend on a pudding why not just buy a normal one and stuff it full of tenners?