Home › Fireless Cookery › Fig Pudding
Fig Pudding
1 cup sugar 1/2 cup butter 1/2 cup water 4 level teaspoons baking powder 2⅓ cups flour 1/2 cup figs chopped fine Whites of 4 eggs Cream the butter; add the sugar gradually; sift the baking powder with the flour, and add milk and flour alternately; add figs and fold in the whites of eggs. Pour mixture into buttered molds; place mold in kettle and add boiling water until it almost comes to top of molds. Boil fifteen minutes and place in cooker for two hours. Serve with hard sauce.
A steamed white pudding built for a fireless cooker — brought to the boil on the stove, then left to finish in a insulated box. The method translates easily to a covered pot of simmering water.
- Water or milk?The ingredient list calls for 1/2 cup water, but the method says to add "milk and flour alternately." Either liquid works; milk gives a softer, richer crumb. Use 1/2 cup of whichever you choose.
- What a fireless cooker isAn insulated box, often packed with hay or felt, that held a preheated pot near boiling for hours without fuel. The initial fifteen minutes of hard boiling is what charges the pudding with heat; the two hours in the box let it coast down and set.
- Doing it without oneKeep the mold in gently simmering water in a covered kettle for about 1 1/2 to 2 hours, topping up with boiling water as it evaporates. A slow cooker on low with an inch or two of water can also be used.
- The moldsButter them well and fill no more than two-thirds full — this batter has four teaspoons of baking powder and will climb. Cover each mold with foil or a tied cloth so condensation does not soak the top.
- Water level"Almost to the top of the molds" is deliberate: this is a water bath, not a steamer basket. Keep the pot lidded so the water stays at temperature rather than boiling away.
- The figsAlmost certainly dried figs rather than fresh, though the recipe does not specify. Cut off the hard stem ends before chopping, and dredge the pieces in a spoonful of the measured flour so they do not sink.
- Whites onlyFour whites and no yolks give a pale, light pudding rather than a dark suet-style one. Fold them in last and do not beat them past soft, glossy peaks or they will be hard to incorporate.
- Hard sauceCreamed butter and powdered sugar, flavored with vanilla or brandy, served cold so it melts over the hot pudding. Assume it is expected here; the recipe gives no proportions.
- YieldProbably six to eight servings, though the recipe gives no yield and mold size will decide it. Turn out while still warm, as the pudding tends to stick as it cools.
Fireless cookery had a real vogue in American kitchens in the 1900s and 1910s, promoted in household magazines and extension bulletins as a way to save fuel and keep a summer kitchen cool: food was boiled hard on the range, then sealed into a hay- or wool-packed box where retained heat finished the job. Steamed puddings suited the method perfectly, since they need long, moist, moderate heat rather than a lively fire. The dish itself descends from the English boiled pudding tradition, but this is a lightened American cousin: baking powder and beaten whites in place of suet and hours of hard boiling, with dried figs for the fruit.