BLACK pudding king Andrew Holt has proved that not only do his puds taste amazing but they look out of this world as well.

Andrew, who runs his own pudding company in Waterfoot, beat off the best in Europe once again with his secret pudding recipe with an extra added twist.

Andrew travelled to Belgium to take part in Europe's biggest black pud contest and walked off with two gold medals for the most original entries.

His star recipes included a roule pudding with a date and walnut filling, decorated with walnuts, and a sort of "roly poly" pud with an apple and blackcurrant swirl in the middle.

He said: "The judges said they had never seen anything as original as these two recipes. I don't make them for sale to my regular customers, they were just two specialities I thought of for the competition and they went down a treat." And as well as scooping the two gold awards Andrew also collected two bronze and two silver gongs for good measure.

He said: "I don't really speak much French but I could tell that the judges and the other entrants were impressed with my puddings by the cheers and claps when I went up on stage to collect my prizes.

"And some of the other entries were fantastic as well, with puddings enveloped in cheese, or even puddings en croute, cased in pastry."

But when Andrew made his first pudding as an apprentice butcher more than 20 years ago he had no idea that he would make a career out of it.

And little did he know that he would be so successful as to scoop more than 25 honours across the UK and the continent for his award-winning puds.

When he is not winning awards Andrew makes more than two-and-half tonnes of black pud every week at his firm R S Ireland Black Puddings in Waterfoot and not only sells them in the North West but across Europe on the internet.

His recipe is a closely guarded secret which dates back to 1879 and is full of his very own herbs and spices.

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