Sixpence in the Dough: My Stir-Up Sunday Doughnut Tasted Like Christmas and Regret

Stir-Up Sunday is one of Britain's loveliest traditions: the last Sunday before Advent, when families gather to stir the Christmas pudding, make a wish, and briefly convince themselves they'll be ready for December. This year it lands on 22 November. I had planned to honour it properly. Instead, I folded an entire Christmas pudding into a doughnut dough and dropped it into hot oil. Reader, the pudding fought back.

The idea (a warning in disguise)

The plan was simple, in the way that most bad ideas are. Christmas pudding already contains everything a doughnut wants: boozy dried fruit, mixed spice, brown sugar, citrus zest. The only missing bit was the suet, which is essentially fat, and fat is what makes doughnuts gloriously terrible for you. Swap some butter for suet, soak the fruit in brandy, and you've got a festive hybrid. What could possibly go wrong?

Everything, as it turns out. But first, the recipe.

The recipe (do not attempt without ventilation)

Makes: 8 doughnuts, or 8 regrets, depending on your outlook.

• 300g strong white flour
• 7g dried yeast
• 40g caster sugar
• 100ml warm milk
• 2 eggs
• 60g shredded suet (yes, really)
• 150g mixed dried fruit, soaked overnight in brandy
• 1 tsp mixed spice
• Zest of one orange
• Pinch of salt
• Sunflower oil, for frying
• Caster sugar, for coating

Mix the flour, yeast, sugar and salt. Add the warm milk, eggs and suet, and bring together into a dough. Knead for ten minutes, then fold in the brandy-soaked fruit, mixed spice and orange zest. Leave to prove for two hours, until doubled in size. Shape into eight balls, prove again for another hour, then fry at 170°C for roughly two minutes per side.

There's no gentle way to say this: suet dough behaves like a pudding that has been told it's a doughnut and has decided to sulk. It's dense, sticky and heavy. It does not stretch. It does not cooperate. It sits in the bowl like a small, boozy boulder.

The frying incident

The first doughnut went in and immediately sank. The second puffed up like a cricket ball. The third split open and ejected a single sultana with the force of a small firework, which landed on the hob and sizzled resentfully. By the fourth, I had accepted that this was no longer cooking. This was an experiment in structural engineering, and the structure was losing.

The finished doughnuts were dark, heavy and slightly uneven, like something dug up from a Victorian garden. I coated them in caster sugar because sugar fixes most things. It did not fix these. They looked like Christmas puddings that had been left in the sun and then dropped. I put them on a plate and called the family in.

The taste test (with horrified relatives)

My Auntie Carol was first. She took a bite, chewed for a long time, and said, "It's very... festive." Auntie Carol has never lied to me before. I felt the ground shift.

My dad, who has eaten cold Christmas pudding for breakfast since 1998, was more generous. "It's a bit like a doughnut that's been to a carol service," he said, reaching for a second. "I'd have another. But I'd complain about it."

My cousin Priya, who is vegan and had already declared the whole enterprise "a war crime against fruit," took the smallest possible bite and put it down. "It tastes like a mince pie that's been through a divorce," she said. That was probably the most accurate review of the afternoon.

My mum, ever diplomatic, said, "The orange zest is nice." Then she opened a window.

The verdict: triumph or greasy insult?

Here's the thing. I wanted to love these. I wanted to be the person who reinvented the Christmas doughnut and got a shout-out from a supermarket. Instead, I made something that tastes like Christmas pudding, looks like a minor crime, and sits in your stomach like a paperweight. The suet makes them heavy. The fruit makes them soggy. The brandy makes them taste like a very posh cough sweet. They are not a triumph. They are not quite an insult either. They're a cautionary tale with a sugar coating.

Would I make them again? Almost certainly. Stir-Up Sunday is about tradition, and tradition is mostly doing something slightly ridiculous because your ancestors did. But next time I'll skip the suet, use butter, and simply serve a normal doughnut alongside a bowl of Christmas pudding. That way, everyone gets what they want, and nobody has to eat a sultana at high velocity.

If you insist on trying it

Use a deep-fry thermometer. Keep the oil at 170°C and no higher, or the fruit will spit. Don't overfill the pan. Don't walk away. And for the love of all that is holy, don't stir the dough on Stir-Up Sunday and make a wish. My wish was that the doughnuts would rise. They did. That was the problem.

Next year, I'm making a mince pie doughnut instead. I've already bought the suet. I'm sorry.