A Dickensian Introduction…
It was, as all the best winter Sundays are, a day wrapped in a shawl of soft grey light, with the faintest promise of frost whispering at the windowpanes. London, for the story surely begins in London where all proper tales of bustle and pudding do, lay beneath a cathedral hush, as though the very city held its breath in anticipation of the Christmas season tiptoeing ever nearer.
Down narrow streets where gas lamps flickered bravely against the creeping dusk, and along broader avenues where hansom cabs clattered with unhurried purpose, there drifted a curious expectancy, the sort that settles upon a neighbourhood when something delightful, something traditional, something unmistakably pudding-shaped is afoot.
Thus begins our tale – not of spirits and misers, nor of spectral warnings and midnight revelations, but of something equally magical in its own right, the making of the Christmas pudding.
Stir-Up Sunday, rolls around each year on the last Sunday before Advent and in 2025, that’s 23 November. With it comes a once-a-year explosion of suet, fruit, booze, family superstition, and the singular hope that your basin won’t erupt in molten fury like some festive Krakatoa. It is, in every possible way, history and ritual wrapped up in one steaming basin.
But how did a medieval cauldron of meat and dried fruit become the beloved cannonball of Christmas? Why does the Church of England unwittingly inspire a nationwide baking day? And what on earth possessed our ancestors to hide metal currency in dessert?
Let’s stir things up and find out.
From Medieval Pottage to Pudding Royalty
Imagine, if you will, medieval England; a time of chilliness, plague, and over enthusiastic boiling. Out of this culinary environment emerged plum pottage, a thick stew of meat, grains, dried fruit and spices. It was a “big pot of everything” served at winter feasts, more survival strategy than treat.
Over the centuries the meat slowly disappeared (rejoice, vegetarians of history) and the mixture became sweeter, denser and more pudding-like. By the 17th and 18th centuries, the dish had evolved into a suet-based, fruit-packed “plum pudding.”
The Victorians, who never met a tradition they couldn’t embellish, polished it into the iconic dome we know – suet, breadcrumbs, raisins, currants, peel, sugar, spices, lashings of booze, and the firm expectation that you will steam it for approximately the length of a minor sea voyage.
By Dickens’ day, the pudding was already a star. In A Christmas Carol, the Cratchit pudding “like a speckled cannon-ball… blazing in half of half-a-quarter of ignited brandy” captured exactly the over-the-top drama many households still re-enact every year.
Not to mention that it’s a pyromaniacs delight and the only British dessert commonly set on fire at the table without anyone raising an eyebrow.
The Cromwell Interlude: When Christmas Was Cancelled by Government
Of course, the pudding’s rise was not without drama. Enter Oliver Cromwell, the 17th-century Lord Protector and part-time Christmas ruiner. During the Puritan regime, The Long Parliament passed an ordinance, in June 1647, and festivities deemed “popish” or excessively fun were abolished. A category that apparently included mince pies, holly, merrymaking, and anything with detectable amounts of joy.
Christmas Day was stripped of its holiday status, churches were ordered to stay open for regular business, and traditional foods such as plum pudding were disapproved of as decadent and morally suspect. (To be fair, a pudding containing that much alcohol does raise valid theological questions.)
The pudding survived, of course, quietly simmering away in private kitchens, presumably with one eye on the door in case Parliament burst in.
After the Restoration, festive cooking roared back with all the pent-up energy of a nation denied its dessert. And thus the pudding re-entered British life with renewed determination to be as rich, dark and defiantly celebratory as possible.
Stir-Up Sunday: When the Church Accidentally Invented a Baking Day
Stir-Up Sunday did not start as a culinary instruction. Its roots are in the Book of Common Prayer, where the Collect for the Sunday before Advent begins:
“Stir up, we beseech thee, O Lord, the wills of thy faithful people…”
If you’re thinking, “Surely that has nothing to do with dessert,” you’d be right, initially. But as Victorian families left church after hearing the words “stir up,” their minds dutifully wandered to the large bowl of fruit and suet waiting at home. And thus, through a delightful act of collective or deliberate misunderstanding, an ecclesiastical command became a domestic one.
By the 1800s, the last Sunday before Advent was the established day to mix the pudding, giving it several weeks to mature into that rich, boozy orb that is somehow denser than physics allows.
The “Rules”: Family Stirring, Wishes and the Magi’s Compass
Stir-Up Sunday comes with a set of traditions that, depending on your family, are either charming rituals or mildly threatening pieces of folklore.
- Everyone stirs the bowl
Each person in the household takes a turn with the spoon. This seems like a lovely way to involve children until you remember that the mixture weighs roughly as much as a small dog.
- You must stir east to west
This is said to honour the journey of the Magi, the wise men who travelled from east to west to visit the baby Jesus. It’s also a great way to start an argument about which way east actually is when you’re standing in a kitchen with the curtains closed.
- You make a wish while stirring
Everyone is meant to wish for something festive and uplifting. Instead, the collective wish is simply: “Let us survive Christmas without a single board-game incident, emotional breakdown, or Monopoly-fuelled, Traitors-style betrayal.”
- Hide a token inside for good luck
Which brings us neatly to…
Why on Earth Was a Sixpence in the Pudding?
Historically, puddings contained small charms; thimbles for thrift, rings for romance, wishbones for luck. But the most enduring symbol was the silver threepenny bit or sixpence.
Why a sixpence?
Because it was small, silver, widely available, and symbolised prosperity. Whoever found it in their slice was promised good luck or wealth in the year ahead. (This is one of the few historical gambling traditions that involved a real risk of dental trauma.)
Sadly, the tradition declined for two reasons:
Modern coins stopped being made of real silver, which meant dropping them into a steamed pudding resulted in an unappealing metallic flavour and, on one widespread occasion in Australia in 1966, puddings turned green!
Health and safety officials pointed out, entirely correctly, that slipping bits of metal into dessert was not the best idea humanity has ever had.
Today, some families still use real silver charms (sold for this exact purpose) and wrap them before adding them to the cooked pudding. Others simply hand them out symbolically to avoid emergency dental appointments.
A Pudding That’s Rich in More Ways Than One
Across the 20th century, the beloved pudding continued to evolve. Wartime rationing forced adjustments (dried fruit? Luxury!), but the dish survived, partly because it keeps for months and partly because British morale is directly linked to pudding.
Hotels and chefs later put their own spins on the classic with different alcohols, citrus twists, alternative fats, brioche crumbs, even vegan versions, although the question of whether a pudding made without suet can still call itself “proper” continues to divide families faster than Brexit.
Yet despite all these variations, the essential qualities remain unchanged – dense, boozy, dark, fruity, steamy, and capable of denting the floor if dropped.
The Theatre of the Christmas Day Pudding
After its weeks of maturation, the Christmas pudding makes a second dramatic appearance on 25 December. The ritual goes something like this:
Retrieve bowl from cupboard, where it has been maturing like a tipsy hibernating squirrel.
Steam it again for another heroic length of time.
Turn it out onto a plate, ideally without losing structural integrity.
Pour brandy over it, pretending to use a sensible amount.
Set it on fire and march triumphantly to the table like Mrs Cratchit.
Shout “Oooh!” as the blue flames lick up the sides.
Eat cautiously, attempting to avoid any unwrapped family fortunes buried inside.
It is possibly the most theatrical moment of the British culinary year, rivalled only by the dropping of the roast potatoes and the annual debate about sprouts.
Why We Still Make It (Even Though Supermarkets Sell It Ready-Made)
With excellent ready-made puddings available and modern schedules being what they are, it would be easy to let Stir-Up Sunday pass by. But millions still follow the tradition, and the reason is simple:
Making a pudding together marks the start of the festive season in a way that shop-bought dessert simply can’t replicate.
It’s the shared stirring.
The laughter.
The arguments about where east is.
The quiet superstition.
The smell of spices and brandy.
The feeling of connecting, albeit through a messy, sticky bowl, to centuries of people who have done the same thing.
It is, in short, a tradition worth preserving.
So This Stir-Up Sunday, Go On … Stir it Up
Whether you’re a pudding purist, a moderniser, a reluctant participant, or someone who only shows up for the flambé, Stir-Up Sunday is a delightful reminder that Christmas is not just about glittering lights or perfectly curated social feeds.
It’s also about ritual, history, family nonsense, and a basin of ingredients that looks worryingly like building mortar until cooked.
So put the kettle on. Gather your bowl. Summon the family. Argue about the compass points. Make a wish. Hide a shiny charm if you dare. And let the ancient magic of grated suet and brandy guide you.
Because as traditions go, few things are more comforting than history and ritual wrapped up in one steaming basin.
For an authentic Victorian Christmas pudding recipe try one by Eliza Acton, the Sussex-born food writer who produced one of Britain’s first cookbooks aimed at the domestic reader.
If you’ve enjoyed browsing our website, learned something new, or just had a smile because of what we do – we’d love your support to keep the good stuff brewing!
Where to next?
• Eliza Acton’s Superlative Mincemeat
• Christmas cocktails … and cake!
• Quirky Christmas traditions around the world