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Fig Pudding
1 lb. figs chopped fine and flavored. 1/2 lb. suet. 1/2 lb. bread crumbs. 1/2 lb. sugar. 3 eggs. 1 cup sweet milk.
Mix eggs, sugar and milk, then bread crumbs, then suet and figs. Add one tumbler of good brandy and one teaspoon baking powder. Steam in large mold or in individuals. Steam for two and a half hours and serve hot with rich brandy sauce.
A steamed suet pudding in the English Christmas tradition, filed here under Vegetables only because old books shelved puddings wherever there was room. The method is forgiving; the measurements need translating.
- A tumbler of brandyA tumbler in this period is usually reckoned a straight-sided glass of about 8 fl oz, half a pint, though the size was not standardized. That is a great deal of liquid alongside a cup of milk, and some of the alcohol will remain after steaming. Half that amount gives a pudding that still tastes strongly of brandy and holds together better.
- SuetBeef suet is the hard fat from around the kidneys, and it is what makes a steamed pudding light rather than greasy. Ask a butcher, or use packaged shredded suet. Half a pound is about 8 oz; grate it frozen if working from a solid piece, and toss it with a spoonful of the crumbs so it does not clump.
- Bread crumbsSoft crumbs from stale white bread, not dried or toasted ones. Half a pound is roughly 4 to 5 cups loosely packed. Modern packaged dry crumbs will absorb far more liquid and give a dense, pasty result.
- "Flavored" figsThe instruction is vague by modern standards. It most likely means the chopped figs are macerated or seasoned with something aromatic before mixing; brandy, sherry, or citrus zest with a little spice are all plausible, but the recipe does not say. Soaking them an hour in part of the brandy is one reasonable reading.
- Baking powder in a steamed puddingA teaspoon is there for lift, but it starts working the moment it meets liquid. Add it last, as written, and get the pudding into the steamer promptly rather than letting the batter stand.
- The mold and the steaming setupButter the mold well and fill it no more than two-thirds, then cover tightly with a lid or with pleated foil tied down, or the condensation will soak the top. Set it on a rack in a pot with boiling water reaching halfway up the mold, keep the water at a bare simmer, and top up with boiling water as it drops.
- TimingTwo and a half hours is right for a single large mold of about two quarts. Individual molds of a cup or so need 45 minutes to an hour. A skewer to the center should come out clean and the pudding should be pulling slightly from the sides.
- Yield and servingThe full quantity makes a pudding serving roughly ten to twelve. Let it rest ten minutes before turning out. A "rich brandy sauce" might be a hard sauce of creamed butter and powdered sugar with brandy beaten in, served cold against the hot pudding, or a cooked pourable custard-style sauce; the recipe does not specify.
- KeepingSteamed puddings improve after a few days. Cool completely, wrap well, refrigerate, and re-steam 30 to 45 minutes to serve.
Steamed suet puddings came to American cookbooks straight from English practice, where the boiled or steamed pudding in a cloth or basin was a standard sweet finish to a winter dinner. Figs, dried and imported, were a keeping fruit available when fresh fruit was not, which is why fig pudding turns up in the same December repertoire as plum pudding; the "figgy pudding" of the carol is often taken to mean this dish, though the phrase was also used loosely for dried-fruit puddings generally. Mrs. Wilson wrote for American home cooks during and just after the First World War, and was known for wartime economy cookery in the newspapers; a recipe calling for a full tumbler of good brandy belongs to the celebratory end of her range rather than the thrifty one. Its placement under Vegetables reflects nothing about the dish and everything about the loose sectioning of period cookbooks.