I’m back trying my hand at “British” things again. This time I embraced the tradition of ‘Stir up Sunday’, making traditional Christmas pudding on the last Sunday before Advent. I was a little late so technically my stir up happened on Stir up Sunday + 2 weeks, but in every other way I strove for authenticity!
First, we had to go grocery shopping for all the ingredients. Having never made a Christmas pudding before or even seen anyone make it, everything seemed a bit foreign to me. Candied peel, suet – what are these things? Peter and I spent a good 5 minutes looking for vegetable suet in the grocery store before finally asking someone. In the end, she led us back to the exact same aisle we’d been before! Turns out suet comes in a box, not a jar. Who would have guessed?
All ingredients assembled, I headed for the kitchen and started stirring up this concoction with a special added element: charms.
When I moved to the UK, my aunt gave me some silver Christmas pudding charms that she’d purchased in England years ago. They are meant to be stirred into the pudding and whoever finds the charm gets good luck.
So we have six charms in the pudding which gives plenty of change for good luck. Also, stirring the pudding is meant to bring good luck so I made tons of wishes and stirred, stirred, stirred!
Cooking the pudding was an interesting adventure too. It needs to be steamed for 6 hours and then soaked in brandy. I’d never heard of that technique but it seemed to work. This is the finished product, all topped off with brandy and ready to be heated up again on Christmas Day.
Fingers crossed it’s edible!
The Pursuit of Holliness 