Money in the Chrismas Pudding
It was traditional for Xmas puddings to contain coins or tokens that the family would discover as they ate the pudding. My mother used to put a mixture of threepences, sixpences and shillings in, with the occasional florin.
After decimal currency was introduced in 1966, there were warnings that the new cupronickel replacements would create poisonous salts if cooked into a pudding, so Mum had a small collection of the old money to put in the puddings, and you swapped your findings for the decimal equivalent, so the silver stuff could be saved for the following year.
Alternatively, small silver tokens of various sorts could also be cooked into the pudding. It was possible to purchase such tokens for this purpose.
How to add the coins
The tokens, or coins, should be boiled in water, strained and allowed to air dry, and added individually, late during the final stage of mixing, so that they don’t all stick together.
If planning to reuse the tokens the following year, they should be gently but thoroughly cleaned, and put away somewhere safe.
Safety considerations
Now-a-days, with litigation and our very risk-averse culture, coins or tokens are seldom put in Xmas puddings, due to the risk that youngsters might swallow them. Indeed, Mum did trial commercial tokens shortly after decimal currency came in, but they were so small that she abandoned them in favour of her collection of the old currency. Likewise, she ended up leaving out the threepences.