Stir Up Sunday - A Family Affair!

My daughter's step-mother invited me to join her and my daughter to make our Christmas pudding together this year.  In an attempt to create harmony and a good feeling at Christmas I accepted the offer.  The plan was to meet at Caroline (the step-mother)'s house mid morning along with our ingredients and make our puddings together. 

Now just to confuse things my daughter is also called Caroline so I will refer to her as Mummy C and her step-mother as Mrs C (Mrs Caroline).

Meanwhile I saw a mention in the December issue of Delicious Magazine for a Stir-up-Sunday Christmas pudding kit available from Fortnum & Mason.  The kit looked really good, contained everything to make a pudding (even the silver sixpence and a silver charm) except a lemon, 50ml of brandy and

2 eggs (which were supplied by the local feathered ladies!)  . 

The kit looked so enticing and interesting and knowing the Fortnum & Mason brand I knew it would be good quality so I contacted their Marketing Dept and asked for one to make at our family session.  They were kind enough to send me two kits, one for myself and one for Mummy C (she has now started blogging in her own right).

The kit contained all the dry ingredients needed, an F&M ceramic bowl, a sixpence and a unique silver charm to hide in the pudding and even the greaseproof paper and string to finish off the pudding before boiling.  The boiling time was 4.5 hours

All set up and ready to go

The instruction card was clear and easy to follow and it really didn't take long to mix up the pudding and in true tradition everyone in the house took time to have a stir and a wish.

Getting ready with the lemons and eggs

Whilst we waited for the puddings to cook Big C helped Boy G (my 3 year old grandson - see Mummy C's blog) to bake a chocolate cake and mince pies.  Boy G enjoyed rolling out the pastry and cutting out the little shapes for the mince pies.

Making chocolate cake with Grandma (Mrs C)

"Can I roll them out?"

 

Really serious Boy G with his pie making

Baby G (13 week old grandson) slept quietly in the other room (a feed now and then) but basically just being a perfect little baby! Boy G mixed his time with baking and playing on the stairs in his imaginary bakery and giving us lots of pretend food to eat.

"Who wants a pretend egg lunch?"

The future chef making lunch for his guests!!

At the end of the day, pudding ready to take home and a lovely lunch inside us, we left promising to get together again and bake something else!

 

I will think about using these kits next year if they have them. I am really looking forward to pudding time on Christmas day!

Thanks to Fortnum & Mason for sending me their Stir Up Sunday kits.