Christmas Pudding

Christmas pudding is the dessert traditionally served on Christmas day in Britain and Ireland, as well as in some Commonwealth countries. It has its origins in England, and is sometimes known as plum pudding, though this can also refer to other kinds of boiled pudding involving a lot of dried fruit.

Basics
Every household has its own recipe for Christmas pudding, preferably handed down the family; it is probable that there were also regional variations.

Christmas pudding is a boiled, or rather steamed, pudding, massively heavy with dried fruit and nuts, and usually made with suet. It should be very dark in appearance - effectively black - and moist with brandy and other alcohol (some recipes call for dark beers such as mild, stout or porter).

Traditionally, Christmas puddings were boiled in a pudding cloth, and they are often represented as round, but at least since the beginning of the twentieth century they have usually been prepared in basins.

The wish and other traditions
Traditionally puddings were made on or immediately after the Sunday "next before Advent", i.e. five weeks before Christmas. The Collect for that Sunday in the Book of Common Prayer of the Church of England, as it was used from the sixteenth to the mid twentieth centuries, reads:
"Stir up, we beseech thee, O Lord, the wills of thy faithful people; that they, plenteously bringing forth the fruit of good works, may by thee be plenteously rewarded; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen"
The association of stirring and fruit was irresistible and the day became known as "Stir-up Sunday". Everyone in the household, or at least every child, was required to give the mixture a stir, and to make a wish while doing so.

It was common practice to include small silver coins in the pudding mixture, which could be kept by the person whose serving included them. The usual choice was a silver 3d piece (see History of the threepence), or a sixpence. However this practice fell away once real silver coins were not available, as it was believed that alloy coins would taint the pudding.

Once turned out of its basin, the Christmas pudding is traditionally decorated with a spray of holly, then, in some parts of the country, doused in brandy, flamed (or 'fired'), and brought to the table ceremonially - where it should be greeted with a round of applause. In some houses the lights are turned out as the pudding is brought in amid a halo of purple brandy flames. It can be eaten with brandy butter, rum butter, cream (lemon cream is excellent) or custard and is often sprinkled with caster sugar (the fall of the sugar on triangular slices resembling the fall of snow on a pitched roof, or snowy mountain tops).

 

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