Get ready for ‘stir-up Sunday’

Next Sunday, 22nd November, the last Sunday before advent in the Christian calendar, is stir-up Sunday.This is the day when according to tradition, Christmas puddings should be made, should be stirred up, and then put away to mature ready for Christmas Day.

It’s a great name, and it comes from a prayer or collect said in English Anglican churches: “Stir up, we beseech thee, O Lord, the wills of thy faithful people; that they, plenteously bringing forth the fruit of good works, may of thee be plenteously rewarded…” It is part of the year’s prayers and collects and is due to be said on that particular Sunday. I guess it made people think about getting their puddings ready for Christmas and it became a tradition that this was the day on which they should be made. Everyone in the house takes a turn at stirring the pudding, and in our house we always made a wish as we stirred.

Here is here recipe my mum used, dating back to 1700. It makes an awful lot of pudding, which is great if you have a big family and if they all like pudding; I usually half the quantities and even then it makes two 2 pint pudding basin puddings. The great thing is, puddings don’t go ‘off’ so you can keep them for as long as you like – we once had a three year-old pudding which had somehow got pushed to the back of the cupboard… it had shrunk a bit and was very firm, but with a reviving glass or two of brandy, or was it rum or port, poured over it, and a great dish of brandy butter and another of clotted cream to go with it, it was delicious!

It is a tradition that silver sixpences or charms should be inserted into the pudding and whoever finds them in their bowl will have luck for the rest of the year. It may no longer be quite safe to use real coins – and we no longer have sixpences anyway; you can buy ‘cookable’ coins and charms which are safe, or the person serving the pud can, be sleight of hand, carefully hid one in each bowl served… do warn people though, you don’t want a choking hazard!

Mum’s Xmas pudding – makes four 2 pint pudding basins:

1 lb sultanas
1 lb currants
¾ lb seedless raisins – chop if they are very big
½ lb almonds (use flakes or miss out altogether according to your preference)
¼ lb prunes – stoned and chopped
½ lb candied peel
½ lb glacé cherries
½ lb peeled, cored and chopped cooking apples
1 slice crustless stale bread, rubbed to crumbs
1 lb butter
1 lb soft brown sugar
10 oz plain flour
9 large eggs
2 tbsp black treacle
1 large orange, zest and juice
1 lemon, zest and juice
1 tbsp fresh mixed spice
1 tbsp vanilla essence/extract/paste
1 saltspoon of salt
¼ pint brandy or rum
¼ pint old ale or stout

There are no instructions at all, but this is what I would do, rembering that you need a very big bowl if you are making full quantities:

beat butter and sugar until light and fluffy, adding the treacle and fruit zest and vanilla
fold in flour sifted with spice and salt, bread crumbs, and add eggs as you would for a cake, which may curdle a little
stir in the fruit and keeping the mixture from getting stiff by adding the liquid as you go (if you don’t want to use the alcohol, use milk and water)
put mix into well-greased pudding bowls
cover with a doubled over piece of buttered grease proof paper, folded to make a pleat across the top to allow the pudding to rise slightly, put a double thickness of foil over the top and secure very tightly with string to stop any water getting in, and loop the ends of the string over to make a handle to help lift it out of the pan
place on a trivet in a pan of boiling water and steam for six hours, checking often to make sure the water hasn’t boiled away; if you have a streamer use that
remove from pan and allow to cool, and when it is cool take off the greaseproof paper and foil, and replace with clean, secure, and put away until Christmas Day!
reheat in the same way as you cooked it, steaming it for another 2 hours (you may want to add a little more brandy and rum!)
enjoy with brandy or rum butter, pouring or clotted cream.