I’m not British, but I am interested in some of their Christmas traditions. The most fascinating to me is Christmas pudding. Making wishes while stirring a cake of breadcrumbs, liqueur, eggs and dried fruit, steaming it and then setting it on fire five weeks later – that’s an event. Jesus is probably involved somewhere, but I don’t want to get into that. This year I’m making a Christmas pudding and I’d love for you to join me. Welcome to the first of my six-part Christmas Pudding Chronicles.

I know, Thanksgiving hasn’t even happened yet, so why am I writing about a Christmas pudding now? Well, part of the wonderfully strangeness of this mahogany dessert is that it’s traditionally made on the last Sunday before Advent. In pagan terms, that’s the Sunday after Thanksgiving (or five Sundays before Christmas, if that helps). It’s not made ahead of time in preparation for a party, and it’s not frozen. It’s simply left at room temperature for a long time, optionally doused with brandy once a week. I’ve decided to call this process “hardening the cake,” but we’ll cross that pond later. Traditionally, the pudding is made on a Sunday, which means the weekly care takes place on Sunday, but for the purposes of obtaining the ingredients, testing the weekly steps, and telling you my observations, I think now is as good a time as any to start. On Saturday, I’ll tell you what I did and what tools or ingredients I needed, and you can care for your pudding on Sunday.

I have a penchant for desserts that are unusual for me. It’s part culinary curiosity and part risk-free thrill. The worst that can happen is that I waste time on something that tastes awful. The best thing is that I fall in love with the food and the process, and maybe discover a new holiday tradition for me and my household. I’m not repelled by dried fruit, so the odds are in my favor.

Christmas pudding (also called plum pudding or fig pudding) is a process, and that's part of the fun. You mix it and steam it on "Stir-up Sunday," which is the Sunday after Thanksgiving. Then you store it. This is pretty much dormant, of course, but I plan to do the optional "feeding." Once a week, I give my pudding a few tablespoons of brandy. Besides the small pleasure of caring for a pet pudding, this is supposed to add flavor and moisture to the cake, and allow me to check how it's setting. When Christmas finally arrives, the pudding is steamed again to warm it up. Then it's treated to a memorable brandy flambé for serving.