“So bring us some figgy pudding,
So bring us some figgy pudding,
So bring us some figgy pudding, and a cup of good cheer!”
Ah, figgy pudding – the stuff of Christmas music legend.
I have fond memories of figgy pudding, but growing up on the other side of the pond my memories are solely tied to the above referenced lyrics. Many a Christmas grade-school concert featured a rousing version of “We Wish You a Merry Christmas”, entirely out of tune and sung at a volume that would have undoubtedly made Victorian Englanders cringe.
Yet fond and abundant memories do I have of figgy pudding despite never having tasted it.
I had every intention of making my own 1944 (and undoubtedly, very Americanized) version of figgy pudding last year. Unfortunately, there was nary a pudding mold to be found and even the great and glorious Amazon couldn’t deliver it faster than mid-February. So, I tabled the idea and made Holiday Fruitcake instead, which I am now realizing with a fair amount of shame, is the last time I posted to this blog. Quelle horreur!
Regardless, I did eventually find my pudding mold quite accidentally in a kitchen supply shop a few weeks after Christmas and made my purchase with glee.
Fast forward 11 months and I excitedly retrieved my pudding mold from the storage cupboard, opened up my 1944 Good Housekeeping cookbook, and…was instantly concerned when I read “1 ⅓ pounds of ground suet”. Oh…no…foiled again?
Thankfully a bit of research revealed that frozen, grated Crisco would make a suitable enough replacement so I elected to go with that option and started baking.
As soon as I started the preparations I was taken back to last Christmas and the fruitcake. Somehow I had managed to forget just how messy and time consuming it is to dice dried fruit. Alas, I persisted with ease until it was time to grate the frozen Crisco. I anticipated a mess and was not disappointed. If I had it to do it again, I would skip this step entirely and just use room temperature shortening as it was practically melted after being handled and grated anyway.
Overall, the recipe was quite easy to make and took exactly 45 minutes from start to steam, as it were.
To steam the pudding, I used a pot that was just about a half inch larger in diameter than the pudding mold and followed the instructions to fill the pot halfway with boiling water and steam, covered for 2 hours. I checked periodically and added more boiling water from the kettle as needed. With no obvious way to check for doneness, I blindly trusted the recipe and my hob and pulled the mold out of the pot at 2 hours on the nose. I then placed the still-sealed mold on a wire rack and let it rest for 30 minutes before I attempted to release it. My mold is made of some indeterminate metal and I greased it (but didn’t flour it) well with leftover Crisco. The pudding required a bit of encouragement both from a chopstick and the Mister’s firm hand, but it did release cleanly and in one piece.
I left the still-steaming pudding to rest a bit longer while we ate dinner and then served it up with a small spoonful of Hard Sauce, which was very much not the pourable sauce I envisioned but rather a nice, hearty buttercream icing. No matter. The first piece fell apart upon slicing, but the second and third held together nicely.
And the verdict? The Mister, who is not a fan of overly spicy (meaning, nutmeg, ginger, etc) baked goods proclaimed that it was, in fact, not too spicy at all and the flavour of the figs really came through. My Maman agreed with his take on the spice and said that, while it wasn’t her favorite dessert, she would eat it again if I made it. Both mentioned, and I concur, that the Hard Sauce was unnecessary and was almost a bit too sweet.
Overall, I was pleased with the pudding. It was a bit drier than I expected it to be and having never had pudding before, I have no idea if that is normal. But, it did have a delicately spiced and figgy flavor which I enjoyed. The Mister rated it 7.75/10 and Maman gave it an 8. I would give it a 6. It was good, but I don’t know if it was worth the effort. I would love to try an authentic British pudding to compare as I’m sure the differences would be striking.
Steamed Christmas Fig Pudding
Ingredients
- For the Pudding:
- 3/4 lb. (2 1/3 c) chopped, dried, whole figs
- 1 1/2 c. bottled milk or 3/4 c. evaporated milk and 3/4 c. water
- 1 1/3 c. suet, ground fine
- 1 1/2 c. soft bread crumbs
- 3 eggs, well-beaten
- 1 1/2 c. sifted all-purpose flour
- 2 1/4 teasp. baking powder
- 1 c. granulated sugar
- 1 teasp. nutmeg
- 3/4 teasp. salt
- 3 tablespoon. grated orange rind
- 1/3 c. butter or margarine
- 1 c. sifted confectioners’ sugar
- 1 teasp. vanilla extract or brandy
- Pinch of salt
For the Hard Sauce
Directions
Pudding:
Cook the figs with the milk in a double boiler for 20 min. Combine the suet, bread crumbs, and eggs. Add the cooked fig mixture with the sifted dry ingredients and the orange rind, and mix well. Pour into a 2 qt. greased or oiled, covered pudding mold. Steam on top of the range for 2 hours. Serve with Hard Sauce.
Hard Sauce:
Work the butter with a spoon or beater until light and creamy. Then add the sugar gradually, while continuing to work with a spoon or beat with an electric beater until light and fluffy. Add the vanilla extract, a little at a time, and the salt. Pile lightly in a serving dish, and chili until needed.
I used frozen sticks of Crisco to replace the suet, dried black mission figs, and standard issue white sandwich bread for the breadcrumbs. For the sauce, I used butter and vanilla extract.
Bon appetit and Joyeux Noelle!
Dispatches from 1944 