Christmas Pudding: The tradition of Stir Up Sunday (And an early Day 1 of our 12 days of Christmas!)

So today is ‘Stir Up Sunday’, the day you should make your Christmas Pudding. We have been thinking about Christmas for weeks already, due to the release of our 2013 Natural Scotland Hamper range (have a look if you haven’t seen the range), and it feels great and wholly acceptable to really start talking about the festive.

With various Christmas themed Scottish artisan food tasting events in the diary and no doubt a few too many bottles of Cairn O’Mohr Scottish fruit wine tested before the events have even started (for quality purposes naturally) we do love Christmas.

The question I am regularly asked is what is ‘Stir Up Sunday?’. Tradition tells us that your Christmas Pudding should always be made on the last Sunday before Advent using dried fruit that has been soaked with, shall we say, a sufficient quantity of brandy for at least 24 hours (or we’d recommend some Scotch Whisky in the mix too). Everyone in the family should take a turn at stirring the fruit while making a wish. Make sure to stir your spoon from east to west, in honour of the journey of the three wise men.

And to finish here’s a little top tip. If you have just realised by reading this that it is ‘Stir Up Sunday’ and you think you have left it too late to soak your fruit, just give it a quick blast in the microwave. The fruit will plump up in jig time. 

Whatever you wish for I hope you get your just ‘desserts’ (pun fully intended).

Happy ‘Stir Up Sunday’!

Tastefully yours, Brenda