Cause A Stir

 

It’s Stir-up Sunday – the day when it’s customary to do the final stir up of your Christmas pudding. Do you make your own, forget it all together or have just a nibble of a ready-made one? 

In years gone by I have always made my pudding and since surgery made a lower sugar one so that I can still enjoy a sliver. I will still make a small one this year and use the same recipe, but I have to say, a bit like the Christmas cake, it lingers and only entices me to stretch the Christmas feast to yet more days than I would like. I find myself just ‘having to finish it off’ when the rest of the family can happily say ‘no thanks’. So it will be a very small one!

  

I shall therefore use my stir-up Sunday today to make a batch of mincemeat instead (again click here for the recipe I use). In the past I have made it into small filo purses rather than mince pies (recipe here) but it also works well as a pastry tart where the pastry is very, very thinly rolled out to make a shell for the mincemeat and then topped with just a few cut-out and left over pieces of pastry rather than another crust. It works well … give it a try. I’ve made on ahead of time and popped it into the freezer – for safe keeping!