Halloween and Bonfire Night have come and gone, and we have remembered those who fought in various conflicts. Now the race is on for Christmas. However, there is an old tradition where, at the end of November, the last Sunday before Advent which this year falls on Sunday 23rd November 2025, “Stir-Up Sunday” is celebrated.
Stir Up Sunday has its origins in the Church where the collect in the Book of Common Prayer on the last Sunday before the beginning of Advent, begins:
“Stir up, we beseech thee, O Lord, the wills of thy faithful people…”
Meant to “stir up” the church congregation to prepare for Advent, over time it became synonymous with the action of stirring up the Christmas pudding. Families would gather to “stir-up” the ingredients for the Christmas pudding in a bowl, before it was steamed, which then allowed the flavours in the pudding to develop in the weeks before Christmas day.
Originally there were only 13 ingredients, which represented Jesus and his Disciples, these would be placed in a large bowl which was then passed round with everyone taking a turn to stir the pudding, stirring from East to West to mark the journey of the three wise men, and making a wish as you stirred.
The Dorset History Centre holds a large collection of Recipes. Most of these collections are just recipes written on scraps of paper. However we do have a few books containing handwritten recipes, such, as the ‘Old Manor House Cookery Book’ shown below:
Although often not indexed, this is not the case with all of the recipe books as some do contain an index as shown below:
Both of these recipe books also contain recipes written on various loose scraps of paper within them. The recipes include not only recipes for human consumption but recipes for curing various ills, in both humans and animals, as well as making animal feed, ink, varnish, cement, metal cleaners etc.Looking through some these recipes we were unable to find a recipe for Christmas Pudding although there were plenty of other pudding recipes:
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The author of some of the recipes are also recorded, either being on letters sent containing the recipes or noted on the recipes themselves or in the recipe books as can be seen below:
Although unable to find a Christmas Pudding Recipe, we did find some recipes often associated with the festive season. A recipe for Gingerbread for example:
And for Mince Meat:
And for the Mince Pies!
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And finally, to help the Christmas Cheer along, there are also plenty of recipes for ale and different kinds of wine and spirts within these collections, should you require them:
Let us know your favourite Christmas-time recipes in the comments below! And if you try out any of the recipes in this blog, we’d love to see the results!