The family-run Christmas pudding business with a secret recipe that's been untouched for 100 years

Business is booming at one dessert shop in Worcester, where their traditional Christmas pudding recipe has remained untouched for more than a century.

The Halpin family's Christmas pudding recipe, created in the 1880s, is now a key part of the 'Nana Lily's' business - which keeps growing year-on-year.

This year, they have sold 3,000 puddings - a 50% increase on last year.

Lily Halpin, 92, still holds special memories of making Christmas puddings with her mother in Ireland.

She remembers cooking the puddings on an open fire.

"That took some doing", she said. "Especially if the birds knew you were around."

Ellen Halpin-Barnett, founded the business, now known as Nana Lily's, in 2016.

"As a child we used to make twenty, thirty, forty puddings", she recalled.

"It depended who wanted puddings from us and we'd give them as gifts. And then a friend of mine said to me the one year, we weren't able to make her a Christmas pudding, and she had bought Christmas pudding and they're not like yours. She said, 'Why don't you do it so that everyone can enjoy?"'

Their secret recipe has been enjoyed by the royal family, and even at the White House. They now sell their product as far as America and Asia.

They soon hope to employ people outside of the family, but, they say, they won’t be tempted into modern ways of baking.

"We still use an open steamer, we don't use traditional baking methods of today and mass production, Elisa Halpin-Barnett, the youngest member of the team told ITV News.

"We keep everything the same so that the recipe stays exactly as its meant to be", she added.

Lily, Ellen, and pudding prodigy Eilisha are hoping their recipe will continue to be passed down and enjoyed, not just by royalty, but by everyone for many Christmases to come.

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