Advent day 22 ... Christmas desserts
See advent day 21 here
Christmas is a time for over indulging and there are so many Christmas desserts to choose from on the big day ... but why do we associate certain desserts with Christmas?
Christmas pudding
Christmas pudding originated in the 14th century as a porridge type food called Frumenty. It was made of beef and mutton with raisins, currants, prunes, wines and spices. It was more like a soup and was eaten as a fasting meal in the run up to Christmas.
In 1595 it had changed in to plum pudding as it had been thickened by egg, breadcrumbs and dried fruit as well as adding beer and spirits for more flavouring. It was a Christmas dessert by 1650 but the Puritan banned it in 1664, pushing it under the radar again.
In 1714 King George I who was a plum pudding fan, re established it as a Christmas dessert. By the time we get to the Victorian era it represented the pudding we know today.
Superstitions follow the Christmas pudding. The pudding must be made with 13 ingredients to represent Jesus and his disciples and everyone in the family must stir the pudding with wooden spoon from east to west to represent the wise men.
The pudding should start to be made on the Sunday before the first Sunday of advent (basically 5 weeks before Christmas)
Putting a piece of silver (normally a sixpence in the past) is said to bring luck to whoever gets it in their piece. You can buy specially made sixpence pieces for your pudding but they cost a lot more than a sixpence is worth!
Yule log
The custom of burning Yule logs goes back to before medieval times, it was originally a Nordic tradition and it was the name of some European countries such as Germany winter solstices.
The Yule Log was originally an entire tree, brought into the house with a great ceremony. The largest end of the log would be placed into the fire. The log would be lit from the remains of the previous year's log which had been carefully stored away and slowly fed into the fire through the Twelve Days of Christmas. It was considered important that the re-lighting process was carried out by someone with clean hands.
Now most have replaced this tradition with a Yule log or in Belgium/France it is known as a bûche de Noël. It is a chocolate rolled cake layered with cream (like a swiss roll) the chocolate icing is made to look like a bark to honour this old tradition.
Mince pies
See day 7 for more on mince pies here
What's your favourite Christmas dessert?
Comment below!
Rosie x
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