For Approximately $37,639.50 You Can Buy… The World's Most Expensive Christmas Pudding (2024)

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For Approximately $37,639.50 You Can Buy… The World's Most Expensive Christmas Pudding? ›

For Approximately $37,639.50 You Can Buy… The World's Most Expensive Christmas Pudding. If your ideal holiday celebration involves a $37,639.50 Christmas pudding, then you're in luck, because an outrageously expensive version is currently for sale online.

By the mid-1600s, plum pudding was sufficiently associated with Christmas that when Oliver Cromwell came to power in 1647 he had it banned, along with Yule logs, carol-singing and nativity scenes. To Cromwell and his Puritan associates, such merry-making smacked of Druidic paganism and Roman Catholic idolatry.

The largest Christmas pudding

Weighing in at an enormous 3.28 tonnes, the pudding took the villagers of Aughton, Lancashire, eight days to make in July 1992.

Adding silver coins into plum pudding is a fun Christmas tradition. The notion being that whoever finds the coin will have good luck. The tradition may date as far back as early as the 1300s when several small items like dried peas and chicken wishbones were added to the pudding mixture.

The Christmas sixpence

A silver sixpence was placed into the pudding mix and every member of the household gave the mix a stir. Whoever found the sixpence in their own piece of the pudding on Christmas Day would see it as a sign that they would enjoy wealth and good luck in the year to come.

In the 17th century, Oliver Cromwell banned Christmas pudding, mince pies and anything to do with gluttony. The law has never been rescinded”. Ferret Fact Service looked into this claim and found it False.

However, “Christmas pudding” is specifically a “plum pudding” or spiced cake filled with dried fruits and generally seeped with some sort of alcohol (traditionally brandy) and often treacle (molasses). Americans not only have no Christmas Pudding, we have no “puddings” at all. We call them desserts!.

Essentially the recipe brings together what traditionally were expensive or luxurious ingredients — notably the sweet spices that are so important in developing its distinctive rich aroma, and usually made with suet.

For Approximately $37,639.50 You Can Buy… The World's Most Expensive Christmas Pudding. If your ideal holiday celebration involves a $37,639.50 Christmas pudding, then you're in luck, because an outrageously expensive version is currently for sale online.

As mentioned above, most modern coins contain nickel and/or brass, which can react with the ingredients in the pudding. For those who want to honour this age-old tradition, we recommend using specially-made coin tokens that are safe for use.

Why are there no plums in plum pudding? ›

As I learned from attending the Christmas by Candlelight program at Old Sturbridge Village, in earlier centuries, the word “plum” referred to raisins or other fruits such as currants, and a plum pudding was simply a suet pudding made with a hefty amount of raisins and currants.

Superstitions say that Christmas pudding must be prepared with 13 ingredients, which are said to represent Jesus and his twelve disciples. It is also said that the mixture should be stirred in turn from east to west, by each family member, to honour the disciples' journey.

And many other countries have their own special treats to leave for Santa and whatever animal pulls his sleigh. Children in the United Kingdom leave the holiday-favorite mince pie, Swedish kids leave a special Christmas-time rice porridge, and in Germany, the gift is instead a letter to Santa.

The flaming brandy is said to represent the passion of Christ. Christmas puddings were traditionally boiled in a “pudding cloth”, although today are usually steamed in a bowl. Presented on the table with a sprig of holly, they are then doused in brandy and set alight.

The pudding we know today began life as a pottage. This was a kind of broth, including raisins and other dried fruit, spices and wine. It was thickened with breadcrumbs or ground almonds. Not dissimilar to the mince pies of yesteryear, it often included meat or at least meat stock.

Finding a Christmas coin in your slice of pudding is believed to bring good luck and especially wealth in the coming year. This lovely tradition may date back as early as the 1300s when a dried pea or sometimes a small silver ring or crown was baked into a Twelfth Night Cake.

They saw Christmas as a wasteful festival that threatened Christian beliefs and encouraged immoral activities, to (in Stubbs' words) the 'great dishonour of God'. The discontent felt within the Puritan community towards festivals led to the enactment of forceful legislation even before Cromwell's protectorate.

The pudding we know today began life as a pottage. This was a kind of broth, including raisins and other dried fruit, spices and wine. It was thickened with breadcrumbs or ground almonds. Not dissimilar to the mince pies of yesteryear, it often included meat or at least meat stock.

The pudding was meant to have 13 ingredients to represent Jesus and his 12 disciples. Often small trinkets were hidden in the mixture (a silver coin for wealth, a ring for future marriage and a thimble for spinsterhood!). The brandy poured over it and set alight represented the passion of Christ.