Christmas pudding is sweet dried-fruit pudding traditionally served as part of Christmas dinner in Britain and other countries to which the tradition has been exported. It has its origins in medieval England, with early recipes making use of dried fruit, suet, breadcrumbs, flour, eggs and spice, along with liquid such as milk or fortified wine. Later, recipes became more elaborate. In 1845, cookery writer Eliza Acton wrote the first recipe for what she called "Christmas pudding".
The dish is sometimes known as plum pudding (though this can also refer to other kinds of boiled pudding involving dried fruit). The word "plum" had been used for what we would now call "raisin" since the 18th century, and the pudding does not in fact contain plums in the modern sense of the word.