Coins For Ultimate Christmas Pudding

Our answer

Nigella's Ultimate Christmas Pudding (from NIGELLA CHRISTMAS) is a rich, steamed Christmas pudding. Traditionally a silver sixpence was put into the pudding and this was supposed to bring good luck for the following year to whoever found it in their portion of pudding. During Victorian times different shaped silver charms became popular, with each charm having a particular meaning (e.g. a horseshoe for good luck). The Royal Mint sells souvenir silver sixpences that can be used in a pudding and silver charms are available on-line. Most modern coins contain nickel and/or brass, which can react with the ingredients in the pudding so we would suggest cleaning and wrapping the coins first.

If you are using coins in your pudding then they need to be cleaned and sterilized. Cola is often used to clean coins as it contains phosphoric aid, which removes tarnish and makes the coins shiny again. We would suggest that the cleaned coins are then immersed in a pan of boiling water for 10 minutes, to make sure that they are sterlized. Some people wrap the cleaned and cooled coins in aluminium foil, though we would avoid this as the aluminium can react with the fruits in the pudding and would prefer to wrap the coins with baking parchment, parchment paper or greasproof paper. Also if you are using coins or charms then you must warn the pudding eaters in advance that there are items in the pudding to avoid anyone choking and if you feel that it is a risk then we would strongly advise omitting coins and charms.