Christmas Recipes: Oh Bring Us Some Figgy Pudding

I love to cook. Cooking to me is like poetry: a kind of alchemy in which ordinary ingredients are combined and transformed into something extraordinary. Nothing is more extraordinary and celebratory than good food! One thing I like about the Christmas season is the opportunity to celebrate with food. I'll be posting some of my favorite recipes during the month of December.

"Figgy pudding" is one of the English traditions around Christmastime. When carolers  would go about from house to house singing Christmas carols, it was customary to end with "We Wish You a Merry Christmas." The final verse of that carol is "Oh bring us some figgy pudding" because it was also customary for people to bring Christmas goodies out to the carolers, who would playfully sing "We won't go until we get some (figgy pudding)."

I had never tried fig pudding until I was an adult. Shortly after my wife and I were married and I was experimenting more with cooking, I decided to try making it myself. I went to one of those specialty kitchen shops and found a traditional pudding mold. I had a cookbook that included a few recipes for fig pudding and I picked out the one that looked like what I was wanting (and did not call for suet!). It's fun to make and is always a hit. I have used this recipe for "Rich Fig Pudding" almost every year for over 20 years. One year I tried a new recipe that I found in Laurel's Kitchen vegetarian cookbook. I blogged about my experience with this new recipe in You Can't Go Wrong with Figgy Pudding. You can see both recipes below.

RICH FIG PUDDING

(Recipe from The Illustrated Encyclopedia of American Cooking)

7 eggs, separated

1 c. sugar

3/4 lb. bread crumbs

1/2 lb. dried figs, chopped
1/2 cup butter, melted
1/2 tsp. allspice
1/2 tsp. vanilla
2 tblsp. brandy

Beat egg yolks until light, beating in sugar gradually.

Beat egg whites until stiff; fold into egg yolk mixture.

Add bread crumbs, figs, butter, allspice, vanilla

and brandy; mix lightly. Turn into greased 2-quart

mold; cover. Steam for about 4 hours. Serve with hard sauce.

Hard Sauce

1 stick butter

1 1/2 c. confectioners' sugar

1 tsp brandy

Dash of nutmeg

Cream butter; beat in confectioners' sugar gradually.

Add brandy, drop by drop. Place in serving dish;

sprinkle with nutmeg. Refrigerate for at least 1 hour.

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Figgy Pudding

(Recipe from The New Laurel’s Kitchen  cookbook)

Traditional as can be, and delicious, Figgy Pudding contains lots

less fat than pie, though you'd never guess it.

Ingredients:

2 tablespoons soft butter

½ cup honey

3eggs

1 cup chopped dried figs, packed

1 apple, peeled and sliced

1 cup apple juice

zest of 1 lemon

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 cup raisins

1 cup finely chopped walnuts

2 cups soft whole wheat bread crumbs

1 cup whole wheat flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

½  teaspoon salt

¼ teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon cinnamon

½ teaspoon nutmeg

¼ teaspoon ground cloves

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Cream butter and honey. Separate eggs, setting whites aside.

Beat egg yolks until creamy. Add to butter-honey mixture.

Use a blender or food processor to grind figs and apples with

apple juice to jamlike consistency. Combine with lemon rind,

vanilla, raisins, walnuts, bread crumbs, and the egg yolk mixture.

Sift flour with baking powder, salt, soda, cinnamon, nutmeg,

and cloves. Beat egg whites until stiff. Combine wet ingredients

with dry, then gently fold in egg whites. Turn batter out into a

greased 2-quart casserole or pudding mold with a lid. You can

use parchment or foil for a lid, securing it with twine, but be sure

to allow room for expansion: the pudding will rise to about half

again its uncooked size.

Place pudding on a rack inside a pot large enough to give 2

inches of space all around for the steam to circulate. Pour boiling

water into the pot halfway up the sides of the casserole. Cover the

pot and let water boil briskly a few moments, then turn heat to

low. Keep an eye on the water and replenish it if the level goes

down. Steam for 2V2 hours or until top springs back when

touched.

To unmold, turn out carefully onto a plate. Splash with brandy

and ignite, if you like, and serve with a scoop of vanilla ice cream

or with the topping below.

Serves 12.

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Last year during the month of December I posted 12 of my favorite Christmas songs. These songs are still on my blog. To read about them and hear them go up to the top of the blog page and click on "Videos." Then scroll down to "The Joys of Christmas" where you will see the web links listed. 

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You Can’t Go Wrong with Figgy Pudding

I was in my late 20’s when I first tried traditional fig pudding at Christmas. I had grown up singing “We Wish You a Merry Christmas” when we did Christmas caroling, and there was that last verse, “Oh bring us some figgy pudding…” but I had no idea what I was singing about. The opportunity came when I was living under British rule. I was teaching English in Hong Kong at the time when it was still a Crown Colony of the United Kingdom. One Christmas, a gracious missionary lady served some of us American expatriates a fig pudding that she had prepared and steamed the old-fashioned way. Part of it was the novelty, but I truly loved the treat that followed our Christmas Day meal. I had come to love many things British during my stay overseas, and fig pudding was one of them.

Shortly after I returned to the States, I found a pudding mold in one of those up-scale kitchen boutiques in the shopping mall. I had to get it. (Did I mention that cooking is one of my great joys? It is like a kind of alchemy in which ordinary ingredients are transformed into something extraordinary.) I found a recipe for fig pudding and straightway put it to the test, even though it was in the middle of August. I introduced my new bride to the joys of figgy pudding. It was a great recipe and I repeated it on our first Christmas together. Fig pudding has been a tradition in our house at Christmas for the past 24 years.

A few years ago, I also came upon Julia Child’s recipe for “A Glorious Plum Pudding for Christmas” so I had to try that in my traditional pudding steamer mold. It had a spicier taste with cloves and cinnamon, and a zabaione sauce that is remarkable, but you shouldn’t touch if you are the designated driver. So for a couple of years, I offered our Christmas guests a sampling of both fig pudding and plum pudding.

This year, I discovered a recipe for figgy pudding in my prized “Laurel’s Kitchen” vegetarian cookbook. It required less steam time (2 ½ hours as opposed to 4), fewer eggs, and a few other interesting changes. I decided to try this recipe for Christmas this year. After I made the pudding, it turned out quite lovely in appearance but I began to panic. I realized that with its spices, it was going to taste more like the Christmas plum pudding, and less like the fig-newtony flavor of what I had been making. But the clincher was it didn’t seem to rise as much as I thought it should. I feared it was a flop. Then it hit me, Christmas dinner was approaching, and I was about to offer guests and untried recipe. I actually ran out and bought more eggs and made more bread crumbs thinking I would regroup and make my tried-and-true recipe, but alas, there was no time left. There were too many other things to be done. My wife assured me that everything would be fine, but I had that nagging fear that I would be caught in a Christmas failure, an anglophile disaster. But then there are those times when you have to put on your best face and proceed (a stiff upper lip as our British kin would say).

The day arrived. Getting the house in order and food prepared came right down to the wire. We were making those final preparations, and I was changing into my welcome-the-company-clothes just as the doorbell was ringing. We had 10 people (half of them in-laws!) around the table. Everyone enjoyed the holiday bounty and pleasant conversation. Then came the moment of truth when deserts were brought out. My daughter had brought a cheesecake, so that was our ace-in-the hole, and someone else brought a pecan pie (which no southern Christmas table should be without). But what about that figgy pudding – that thing which would add an Old World element to the season which some would sample for the first time – would it do the holiday justice? It was all heated up, sitting on the plate, hard sauce ready for the topping. I placed the dish on the table and made the first slice. I was relieved that at least it looked just the way a steamed pudding should look, but how would it taste? Plates were passed around to all who wanted to experience it, then I took a bite from my serving …the texture was just right… and pure traditional Christmas pudding flavor (no it wasn’t like the one I had always made before, but it was good, none the less). My relief was complete. Later, when an in-law asked to take some home, I knew that success was achieved.

I’m glad there was no disaster, and no offense registered to the British Isles, but I don’t think I’ll try serving anything again without a test-run first. I’m just not used to living life so close to the edge.

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