Mrs Cratchit's Christmas pudding
The Cratchits have a small goose and a very big pudding. The scene in Stave Three is the best description of a Christmas pudding in English, and it is worth reading before you make your own.
The pudding in the book
In Stave Three, Mrs Cratchit leaves the room alone to bring in the pudding, too nervous to have witnesses. She thinks it might not be done, or might break when she turns it out. Then she comes back "flushed, but smiling proudly", with the pudding "like a speckled cannon-ball", blazing in brandy and decorated with a piece of holly. Bob Cratchit says it is her greatest success since their marriage.
Why it was a cannon-ball
A Victorian pudding was boiled in a cloth, not steamed in a basin. That is why Dickens mentions the cloth, and the smell of it: "a washing-day". The cloth gave it a skin, and the long boiling made it dense and dark. It was round because the cloth was tied at the top.
What goes in
A traditional pudding is a mix of dried fruit (raisins, currants and sultanas), suet, breadcrumbs, sugar, eggs and spices, soaked in brandy or ale. Many families still add a coin for luck.
Stir-up Sunday
The old tradition is to make the pudding on the last Sunday before Advent, called Stir-up Sunday, which falls on 22 November in 2026. Each member of the family takes a turn at stirring, from east to west for the three wise men, and makes a wish. It is then steamed, wrapped and stored until Christmas Day, when it is steamed again.
The print, and the party before it
Our print of Mrs Cratchit's pudding is a thank-you to every kitchen that has been through the same terror: will it turn out? Fezziwig's Ball, from the same book, is the party you want to go to afterwards.
For the cook in your life, browse Christmas gifts for mum.
Questions
- What did Mrs Cratchit's pudding look like?
- Dickens describes it as like a speckled cannon-ball, hard and firm, with a sprig of Christmas holly stuck in the top and lit with brandy.
- When should I make Christmas pudding?
- Traditionally on Stir-up Sunday, the last Sunday before Advent: 22 November 2026. It keeps for months.