Food
Traditional Christmas Pudding Recipe (Stir-up Sunday)
The classic British Christmas pudding recipe — passed down, properly aged, and flamed at the table on Christmas Day.
A traditional Christmas pudding is made on Stir-up Sunday, matured for weeks and fed with brandy, then steamed for six hours and flamed at the table on Christmas Day. This is the recipe that has been made in British homes for at least 150 years, with the small details that separate a great pudding from a doorstop.
Make it on Stir-up Sunday
The proper day to make a Christmas pudding is Stir-up Sunday, usually the third or fourth Sunday in November — giving it at least four weeks to mature before Christmas Day. The name comes from the Book of Common Prayer collect for that Sunday: "Stir up, we beseech thee, O Lord, the wills of thy faithful people..." Every member of the household takes a turn stirring east to west, in honour of the Three Wise Men, each making a wish.
The recipe
- Makes
- 1 large pudding (1.2L basin) or 2 small (600ml)
- Prep
- 30 minutes plus overnight soaking
- Cook
- 6 hours steaming, plus 2 hours on Christmas Day
Ingredients
| Ingredient | Quantity |
|---|---|
| Raisins | 250g |
| Sultanas | 250g |
| Currants | 175g |
| Mixed peel, finely chopped | 100g |
| Glacé cherries, halved | 50g |
| Flaked almonds | 50g |
| Bramley apple, peeled and grated | 1 small |
| Orange and lemon zest | Zest of 1 each |
| Orange juice | Juice of 1 |
| Brandy or stout (plus extra for feeding) | 100ml |
| Vegetable suet | 175g |
| Soft dark brown sugar | 175g |
| Fresh white breadcrumbs | 175g |
| Self-raising flour | 75g |
| Mixed spice | 1 tsp |
| Ground cinnamon | 1 tsp |
| Grated nutmeg | ½ tsp |
| Large eggs, beaten | 3 |
| Silver coin, wrapped in foil (optional, traditional) | 1 |
Method
- The night before, combine all the dried fruit, peel, cherries, almonds, grated apple, citrus zest and juice, and brandy in a large bowl. Cover and soak for at least 12 hours (24 is better).
- The next day, add the suet, sugar, breadcrumbs, flour and spices, and stir well.
- Beat in the eggs.
- Stir the mixture east to west. Make a wish. Pass to the next person until everyone has stirred.
- If using a coin, wrap in clean foil and stir in.
- Grease a 1.2L pudding basin generously with butter. Spoon in the mixture, press down, leaving 2cm of space at the top.
- Cover with buttered greaseproof paper, then a circle of foil with a 2cm pleat folded across the middle to allow expansion. Tie tightly with string under the lip of the basin.
- Steam for 6 hours over a gentle simmer, using a trivet or upturned saucer in the pan, water halfway up the basin, topped up with boiling water as needed.
- Cool, re-cover with fresh greaseproof and foil, and store in a cool dark cupboard.
Feeding the pudding
Once a week until Christmas: unwrap the top, make a few small holes with a skewer, pour over a tablespoon of brandy, and re-cover. Each feeding deepens the flavour.
Christmas Day: reheating
Steam for 2 hours the same way you cooked it. Put it on the hob when you sit down for the main course, so it's ready as plates are cleared.
The flame
- Warm the brandy gently.
- Turn out the pudding onto a warmed serving plate and add a sprig of holly.
- Dim the dining room lights.
- Pour the warm brandy over the pudding.
- Light with a long match — the vapour catches with a soft blue flame.
- Carry it to the table.
The flame lasts about 30 seconds. The room should be silent.
Serving
| Accompaniment | Notes |
|---|---|
| Brandy butter | Butter, icing sugar and brandy creamed together, served cold |
| Brandy cream | Double cream whipped with icing sugar and brandy |
| Custard | Proper, made with eggs and cream — Bird's at a pinch |
| Clotted cream | The most decadent option |
| Vanilla ice cream | Controversial, technically heretical, quietly excellent |
Most households serve two so people can choose.
The shop-bought question
Yes, you can buy a perfectly good pudding — M&S Collection, Fortnum & Mason, Cole's of Bath and Heston Blumenthal's Waitrose pudding are all genuinely excellent. What homemade gives you is the ritual: the November stir, the weekly feeding, the smell on Christmas Day. If you have children, make at least one in your life.
Storage
A properly steamed and weekly-fed pudding keeps a year in a cool dark cupboard. Many families make double quantities — one for this Christmas, one for next.
The history, briefly
Christmas pudding evolved from a 14th-century porridge called "frumenty", made with beef, mutton, raisins, currants, prunes and wine. By the 16th century the meat had been replaced with suet; by Victorian times the pudding was essentially what we eat today, made famous by Dickens in A Christmas Carol. The thirteen traditional ingredients represent Christ and the twelve apostles, the east-to-west stir honours the Magi, the holly recalls the crown of thorns, and the flaming brandy represents the Passion.
And the lights outside?
A Christmas pudding is the most ceremonial moment of the British Christmas meal — the flame, the dimmed lights, the silence. It deserves a house that matches. That is the moment we are quietly working for, every November, on every roofline we light.
Make the outside of your home as ceremonial as the meal inside. Request a Christmas lighting quote →
Related reading
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Where to go next
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