We all want some figgy pudding, right? Apparently not. “Now is the time for home cooks to make and boil the Christmas pudding!” I proclaim, to deaf ears. The people – even hardened foodies – are turning their noses up at this rich grand finale to the Christmas feast. It’s being treated like the brussels sprout of the dessert table, with the ubiquitous cry of: “Does anyone even like it anyway?”

Yes, they do. And they are going to fight for its presence on the Christmas table this year, as they have always done. 

Christmas pudding is a Victorian-era dish steeped in tradition, as well as brandy. It’s supposed to contain 13 ingredients (representing Jesus and the 12 disciples), which include raisins, currants, beef suet, brown sugar, eggs, milk, spices and brandy. 

Puddings should be made four or five weeks before Christmas – the Sunday before Advent – so the flavour deepens. This was once known as “stir-up Sunday”, when everyone in the household, even the staff and children, would give the mixture a stir and make a wish. Small silver threepence or sixpence coins were inserted into the pudding, believed by some to bring wealth for the year ahead to whoever received it in their slice. My family used to joke that you’d need that wealth to pay for the dentist bills after eating all that sugar and chipping your tooth on a coin in your pudding.

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But not everyone loves a dense, sweet pudding made with dried fruits and liquor, suet and breadcrumbs, all served up with English custard or brandy butter. Not even a sliver. Oh no. It’s not keto, or low carb. It’s not low in sugar and has little to recommend it for your waistline. Yes, it’s rich in fibre and micronutrients and will get things moving, but that argument has never won anyone over. Instead, advocates for other desserts come out of the woodwork at this time of year. They raise their hands for the uniquely antipodean and much more summer-appropriate pavlova. Or trifle, or more mince pies.

But to me, it’s not Christmas without the pudding. Not all puddings are good, sure. But a ‘pudding lady’ makes a good one, as does Victor Churchill, and so can you if you get on to it now so the flavours have time to deepen. 

I love the hot pudding against the cold custard, or the warm custard, come to that. I’ll take the brandy butter if it’s not too sweet; a smooth companion to the spiced fruit. I love the smell of Christmas pudding in the same way I love the smell of a real Christmas tree. It’s the right thing at the right time. England can keep its white, soggy Christmas, but I’ll take its traditional pud.

I love Christmas pudding because of the memories. Because it conjures my grandmother, the cook and writer Margaret Fulton, holding a magnificent flaming pudding topped with holly and placing it before us at the Christmas table. Year after year, like a flickering time-lapse video, we returned to the Christmas table. Every year my grandmother – with her diminutive size and huge presence – brought the pudding to the table from the kitchen, intoning a jolly “We wish you a merry Christmas” on the way. By the time she reached the table we had all joined in, captured by the spectacular pudding alight with flames from the whisky. She was Scottish after all. Inside each piece (she made sure) was a silver sixpence, and there was always brandy sauce or English custard.

I don’t want it every day. I don’t even want it once in a while. I want it on Christmas Day. I’d stick my nose up any other time of year in the same way I would at Michael Bublé any other day. Just like those dulcet tones, Christmas pudding is a once-a-year kind of thing – a festive and necessary last hurrah that just feels right.

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