By Ines Keane
There are no plums in a plum pudding. That is the first thing every source we read agrees on, and the last thing they agree on without a caveat.
What it is
Wikipedia calls the Christmas pudding a sweet boiled or steamed pudding, traditionally served at Christmas dinner in Britain, also known as plum pudding. Its ingredients are breadcrumbs, dried fruit, sugar, treacle, suet and sweet spices, often moistened with citrus juice, brandy or other alcohol. Dark sugars and black treacle make it very dark. Customs vary and we describe the tradition, not a recipe.
Why “plum”
The article says “plum” referred to raisins from the 18th century, so the pudding contains no plums in the modern sense. A consumer food website, Lovefood, puts the change earlier: by the 17th century, it says, the pudding was called plum pudding, and “plum” meant dried fruit of any variety. The two give different centuries, and we are not choosing between them.
Where it came from
Lovefood says the pudding descends from pottage or frumenty, porridge-like stews of meat, grains, prunes, raisins, wine and spices, and that recipes added eggs, breadcrumbs, nuts, dried fruit, beer and spirits over the centuries. Wikipedia is more cautious. It says early recipes in medieval England used dried fruit, suet, breadcrumbs, flour, eggs, spices and liquids such as milk or fortified wine, that some possible ancestors were savoury puddings, and that plum pudding recipes appear mainly in the 17th century and later. It names Mary Kettilby’s 1714 book as including one of the earliest.
A king, a myth and a caption
Lovefood says King George I requested plum pudding at his first royal Christmas feast in 1714. Wikipedia calls that claim an unsubstantiated myth. Lovefood itself is inconsistent: the text names George I and an image caption names George III. We take nothing from the king story.
How it got its name
Wikipedia says Eliza Acton was the first to call it “Christmas Pudding”, in Modern Cookery for Private Families in 1845. Lovefood says her book contains one of the first Christmas pudding recipes, and that suet appears in it alongside flour, breadcrumbs, raisins and currants. Wikipedia also records the 1830s as the decade a boiled cake of flour, fruit, suet, sugar and spices, topped with holly, first appears and becomes more associated with Christmas. It says Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol, in 1843, helped make the pudding popular in the UK. Lovefood says the pudding became almost exclusively sweet in the 1830s.
Stir-up Sunday
Wikipedia’s article on Stir-up Sunday says it is an informal name, in Catholic and Anglican churches, for the last Sunday before Advent, which fell on 24 November in 2024 and 23 November in 2025. The name comes from the opening words of that day’s collect in the Book of Common Prayer. The day became linked to making puddings, which need weeks to mature. The article says households traditionally gather to mix and steam the pudding, each person stirring and making a wish.
The Christmas pudding article says the day became linked to the pudding in the late Victorian era, and Lovefood places the family tradition in the Victorian era too. Lovefood also says that around the 1540s the Roman Catholic Church set a prayer for the 25th Sunday after Trinity Sunday, and links it to pudding-making. We report that and cannot reconcile it with the other dates.
East to west
Wikipedia’s Stir-up article says the mixture is stirred from east to west, in honour of the three wise men. Lovefood says the same, and adds that family members stir in order from youngest to eldest. The Christmas pudding article disagrees about the older story. It says the popular claim of a medieval custom involving 13 ingredients and stirring east to west is not supported by the records, which mainly start in the 17th century. So the custom is told as old, and the records are not.
Coins and other charms
The Christmas pudding article says small silver coins, usually threepence or sixpence, were placed in the mixture, and that finding one was believed to bring wealth in the coming year. Other tokens were wishbones, thimbles and anchors. Lovefood adds that a bachelor’s button or thimble predicted another year single, and a ring predicted marriage and wealth, and that these customs have mostly disappeared.
At the table
The article says the pudding is doused in brandy, or occasionally rum, set alight and brought to the table. It says that since the mid-20th century puddings are often reheated by steaming on the day, and recipes were adjusted to allow maturing. It records that in 1927 the Empire Marketing Board published a royal recipe, reduced from 40 servings to 8. The Stir-up Sunday article cites a 2013 survey in which two-thirds of British children had never stirred pudding mix, because ready-made puddings are widely sold.
Dates in order
- 1714: Mary Kettilby’s book with an early plum pudding recipe, according to Wikipedia.
- 1830s: the holly-topped boiled cake, according to Wikipedia.
- 1843: A Christmas Carol, according to Wikipedia.
- 1845: Eliza Acton’s recipe, according to Wikipedia and Lovefood.
- Late Victorian era: Stir-up Sunday linked to the pudding, according to Wikipedia.
- 1927: the royal recipe published, according to Wikipedia.
- 2013: the survey of children, according to Wikipedia.
Side by side
When “plum” came to mean raisins: the 17th century in one source, the 18th in another. Whether the stirring custom is old: told as medieval, unsupported by records. Whether George I asked for the pudding: yes in one source, a myth in another. Our reading: the pudding has a documented history from the 17th century and a customary history that is older in the telling than on paper. That is our inference.
What kind of sources these are
Two Wikipedia articles, which anyone can edit, and a consumer food website with an inconsistent caption. We read no cookery archive, museum or church page. We give no recipe, no quantities and no prices. The pudding traditionally contains alcohol, and we mention it only because the sources do.
Questions a buyer would ask
What is in the pudding, and does it contain alcohol, nuts or suet? How long has it matured? Does the label name the maker and the place it was made? We name no brand and recommend none.
What we left out
We left out the 1931 charity pudding at a London hall, since its numbers appear in one source only. We left out older origin dates and every cooking time, none of which our sources gave plainly.
Quick answers
Does a Christmas pudding contain plums? No. According to Wikipedia, “plum” referred to raisins from the 18th century, so the pudding has no plums in the modern sense.
When is Stir-up Sunday? Wikipedia says it is the last Sunday before Advent: 24 November in 2024 and 23 November in 2025.
Who first called it Christmas pudding in print? Wikipedia says Eliza Acton, in Modern Cookery for Private Families in 1845. A food website calls her recipe one of the first.
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