As the dark days of winter set in, what I love most is the quiet. The bustle and parties and pressure—not so much. But walking out in the cold, watching the seasons change, and then being warm and cozy, making soups and stews, baking traditional holiday treats, curling up by the fire to watch a movie or read a book with a cat on my lap, those are the things I love. What means the most to me about those quiet times that fall around the of the longest night of the year is the chance to reflect on the old year that’s past and imagine the new one to come.
I think Cinderella would do the same. Though hers is a story told in cultures the world over, I think that whatever way her family marked the shortest day of the year, she would be taking stock of things as well. I imagine her sitting in her kitchen, once her stepsisters, stepmother, and father have gone out to a party, leaving her behind as usual. She’s finished the night’s task of baking some traditional treats from a recipe her mother taught her, wiped the table, and swept the hearth. And now, with the candles out, she sits by the light of the dying fire and thinks of the year that’s past (maybe bidding it good riddance, but maybe thinking of some pleasures she enjoyed in spite of…well, everything), and maybe, as she imagines the year to come, she makes a wish.
For we know that Cinderella is a girl who believes in wishes. And what better time than this liminal time between one year and the next, between past and future, to make a wish?
So to mark this in-between time with all of its possibilities, I’d like to share a recipe from the English side of my family: Christmas Pudding. It was given to me by a cousin of my grandfather’s, and part of the instructions include a wish. After mixing and steaming, the puddings sit for 4 weeks, which is why we’re posting this recipe with plenty of time for it to do just that before the holidays.
Alice’s Christmas Pudding
½ lb. stale bread crumbs
½ lb flour
½ lb raisins
½ lb golden raisins
½ lb currants
½ lb mixed peel
1 c. Crisco
1 1/8 c. dark brown sugar
1 large grated carrot
¼- ½ t. nutmeg
½ c. grape juice
1 lemon and 1 orange (both grated rind and juice)
4-5 eggs
Mix all ingredients together.
Wish while stirring
Grease the pudding bowl or bowls. (These need to be able to withstand boiling water. I’ve always used pyrex or metal. It’s also good if they have a lip of some kind for tying the string around it.) Then add the pudding mixture to the bowls, leaving ½ inch of space at the top. Then add a sheet of waxed paper, doubled over on top of the bowl and secure it by tying string around the outside of the bowl. Prepare a piece of cloth for each bowl. It needs to be big enough to put the bowl upside down on top of it and tie the cloth over the bottom, making a little bundle. *
Steam the puddings. Put a steamer basket (or small trivet) on the bottom of saucepan big enough to hold your pudding (one saucepan per pudding). Add the pudding. The opening of the bowl will face down, and the ties of the cloth will be at the top. Fill the pan ¾ with water. Bring to the boil, turn to low and steam 12-16 hours with the lid on.
The first time I made this recipe, I understood why Charles Dickens described the smell of Christmas Pudding this way in A Christmas Carol:
“Hallo! A great deal of steam! The pudding was out of the copper. A smell like a washing-day! That was the cloth. A smell like an eating-house and a pastrycook's next door to each other, with a laundress's next door to that! That was the pudding!”
Cool your puddings and store in a cool dry place for 4 weeks. (I always used the fridge. You can also freeze and bring them to room temperature before the big day.) Before serving, steam them again as before for 4 hours.
As for toppings, lots of people do things like brandy butter, and they also may put rum in the pudding. But I use Bird’s Custard mix from World Market. In my opinion, this sweet and creamy version of Crème Anglaise makes everything better. And if you’ve never had Christmas Pudding before, I will warn you, it is an acquired taste. But if you like things like dark fruitcake or mincemeat, give this recipe a try.
And while you’re stirring together the dried fruit and sugar and spice, don’t forget to make a wish for the coming year. I’m sure Cinderella would!
*Here’s a good instructional blog post from Bigger Bolder Baking about steaming your pudding, if you’d like to know more.
Lissa Sloan is the author of Glass and Feathers, a transformational continuation of the traditional Cinderella tale. Her fairy tale poems and short stories have appeared in The Fairy Tale Magazine, Niteblade Magazine, Corvid Queen, Three Ravens Podcast, and anthologies from World Weaver Press. Visit Lissa online at lissasloan.com, or connect on Facebook, Instagram, @lissa_sloan, or Twitter, @LissaSloan.
Image credits: John Everett Millais and Arthur Rackham
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