Stir up, we beseech thee, the pudding in the pot

and when we get home we’ll eat the lot!

Here we are at the end of November and believe it or not, stir it up Sunday is upon us. As some one obsessed with food and social history Christmas is a dream. There is a wealth of ritual and culinary superstition to choose from and my favourite tradition has to be making my own cake and pudding.

The origins of stir it up Sunday and indeed, the children’s rhyme above, relate to a reading in The Book of Common Prayer written in 1549. Still used in church today this piece is read out on the last Sunday before Advent and just 4 Sundays before Christmas. At some point it became popular for the family to return home from church after the reading and begin this first step towards the festivities.

This time around I shall concentrate on the making of Christmas cake. I am keen to share my family recipe with you and if I tried to include pudding too I could still be writing this as we head into December. But if you would like to have a go you can’t go far wrong using the Be-Ro Rich Christmas Pudding as your mother ship. Have a go, play around with the ingredients and make it your own.

The Cake

The indulgent combination of dried fruit, butter and eggs can be found as far back as the middle ages. These ‘cakes’ were actually a fruit bread risen with ale-balm, so called as it was scooped from the top of the current batch of brewing ale. I once had the good fortune of recreating a ‘Plumb Cake’ from the 18th Century ‘Kidder’s Receipts’ with a pound of flour, six pounds of currants and a quart of ale-balm from local microbrewery Treboom. It had a pretty good rise and was a monster of a cake!

Packed full of dried fruits, spice and sugar,the fruitcake has always been a cake for times of celebration and wealth. Despite attempts by Oliver Cromwell and the puritans to ban it just a century before, as we reach the Georgian Era it can be found eaten as part of the Twelfth Night celebrations and covered with icing. It is then, as with many of our modern Christmas celebrations, the influence of Prince Albert and Queen Victoria which brings us the tradition of our rich fruitcake eaten today.

The recipe I share with you today started life with a Mrs Holman, neighbour to my Nan Beryl Reed. Mrs Holman provided celebration cakes for people in the village and passed on her fruitcake recipe to my Mum. It was used for both my Christening and Wedding cakes and has it’s foundations in that good old stalwart mentioned earlier, the Be-Ro baking book. In the hands of my Mum, Aunt and myself we have all scribbled our own little alterations on ingredients, method and cooking times. This is mine.

The Perfect Christmas Cake

1. 10 oz softened butter
2. 10 oz brown sugar
3. 5 medium eggs, beaten
4. 1 tbsp black treacle
5. 1 tsp mixed spice
6. 1/2 tsp white pepper
7. 10 oz plain flour
8. 2 oz ground almonds
9. 2 1/2 lbs of dried fruit – currant, sultanas, raisins, glace cherries, dates
10. Madeira wine for feeding

Directions

1. Line and grease a 28cm (11 inch) round cake tin. Preheat your oven to 150C.
2. Place all the dried fruit in a bowl and mix with a tablespoon or so of the flour to coat all the fruit. Set aside for later.

1. Cream the butter and sugar in a large bowl. Spoon in the treacle before mixing in the eggs, a bit at a time. if the mixture starts to curdle add in a spoonful of flour and mix again.
2. Fold in the rest of the flour, ground almonds and spices, then the dried fruit to finish. Don’t forget to make a wish!

1. Bake for three and half to four hours or until firm on the top and a skewer comes out clean. Cover the top of the cake with a disk of greaseproof half way through to prevent burning.
2. Feed twice a week with the Madeira until ready to eat.