The Christmas Eve Candle Origins

Some of my most favourite childhood memories revolve around Christmas. It’s always been a huge thing in our family, and I’ve tried to carry a lot of our traditions through to share with my own family.

The smells coming out of our kitchen was, and is a huge memory for me. My Mum would always be baking things like Scottish tablet (looks a bit like fudge but totally different), cookies, cakes and puddings.
One of my favourite puddings is Clootie Dumpling. It was something my Gran would often make. It’s a traditional Scottish pudding, kind of like a plum pudding, but a lot more simple….and I think, nicer.
It’s boiled in a “cloot”, or cloth for hours, and gets this amazing soft skin around the outside….which is perfect with homemade custard.

The spices are what hold my memories strong – ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg, clove would always fill the house with warm scent while the fairy lights twinkled away, and Bing Crosby providing the soundtrack.

The Christmas Eve candle is based on these memories.

I’ve handmade each candle vessel to be used again after the candle is finished, and have hand patterned each one with my Hawthorn design (which is named after my Gran).

We’ve been testing the scent throughout the year to get the right one, and it’s been so lovely having the studio filled with this scent.

The first batch sold out super fast yesterday, and I have had loads of messages asking when/if there will be more. Yes, there will be. I have another batch waiting to fire as we speak, and I’ll announce on my Instagram and Facebook page when they are ready.

~ Ness xx

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Comments (2)

  • I was talking to my mum about clootie dumpling yesterday. I’d seen it somewhere and thought it sounded like my grandmother’s Christmas pudding. I found a recipe and it’s pretty much the same. Her puddings were at every family event – Christmas, Easter, birthdays, mother’s and fathers days, anything. The recipe came from her mother in law who found it in a magazine in the late 1800s. My mum makes the same recipe now. My MiL sneakily asked my mum for the recipe for the first Christmas without Grandma so she could make it for me too

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    • It’s such a beautiful pudding. I’ve often had it with a full Scottish breakfast too. So good xx

      Reply

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