Herewith, a plum pudding tutorial!
{The recipe and instructions for flaming your plum pudding are at the end of this post.}
Our family is so Thanksgiving-pie-oriented that by the time Christmas rolls around, we really are ready to have a dessert that is not pie.
But, in the early days when we were settling our traditions for the holidays, I wanted something fabulous, of course. However, cake was out as well, as all the December birthdays we are blessed with have created a surfeit.
A Continual Feast: A Cookbook to Celebrate the Joys of Family and Faith Throughout the Christian Year to the rescue! Early on in our married life I got myself this book (only in hardcover — edited to say that I see that this is now available second-hand at a reasonable price!).
If you want to incorporate food in a traditional way into your celebration of the liturgical year, this book is a great resource, and it has that helpful air of letting you in on actual traditions, rather than retro-fitted made-up ones, that I appreciate. It makes a lovely wedding or shower gift! Or hey, Christmas present!
I pored over it, and at some point decided that plum pudding represented the dessert that would most bring out the Dickensian aspect of Christmas that a literary person such as myself finds indispensable, as well as release me from any last-minute exigencies.
Because not only are we not in the mood for pie (although I have made my share of mincemeat), or cake, we are — I am — in no shape for much cooking on or even near this glorious feast.
Why not feature a meal-ender that
1) is so laden with emotional, as well as gustatory, freight that it lives up to the challenge and
2) can be set on fire, allowing you to over-awe your little ones with the explanation that for their birthdays you light candles, but for Jesus' birthday you light the whole cake. Trust me, they will be beside themselves to the point that it will matter not one whit that many of them actually do not prefer the taste of this treat.
Which leads me to the next virtue of plum pudding: One recipe will make at least two cakes, and it will keep for at least a year. So if you heed well my injunction to make dessert first, you simply can't go wrong with being able to make dessert a whole year or more in advance.
Another excellent feature of plum pudding is that it requires no expertise whatsoever to produce. You don't need to know any particular techniques of cake-making to furnish your eaters with a tasty (some say, others don't) treat.
You don't even need any exact recipe, and in fact I have blended the features of several recipes together in the course of my years of browsing and perusing and attempting various types. It was hard to resist Gourmet Magazine's “Royal Family Plum Pudding,” for instance, even while remaining true to the Vitz version, as being the first one I had followed. But as I experimented, I realized that it was not going to be possible to go wrong, as long as you have enough suet, sugar, and rich fruits. It's all good.
You do need to buy certain things that you may not have on hand (consult the actual recipe at the end for the ingredients; here I will point out the more arcane ones):
A pot big enough to steam two quart-sized dishes, with two racks that will fit inside (see photos for a hack)
Suet (tutorial-within-a-tutorial below)
Nice dried fruits, but no particular kinds
Everything else you will have on hand, and you may already have everything but the suet, I'd guess. You can probably do this today or tomorrow!
I have learned over the years that it's helpful to separate the recipe into three conceptual building blocks.
1. The fruit –dried and candied — which will need to steep in alcohol for at least an hour
2. The dry ingredients and spices — which include a cup of fresh breadcrumbs, which might take you another step to prepare if you don't have a stash in the freezer
3. The wet ingredients — which include the suet
Fruits:
I also never really succeed when I follow others' directions on candying one's own fruit, so I just did it my own way. Viz:
Put your fruit (in this case, about two cups chunked pineapple, core and skin removed, obviously) in a pan with some nice thick orange and lemon rind. I use that little tool up there on the right to get my peels. It works fine.
Pour over it about a cup of sugar syrup. {Sugar syrup is made thus (I truly did just have some on hand, from the bee-feeding days of the fall): 2 parts sugar, one part water, brought to the boil, simmered for about 10 minutes.}
Simmer the fruit for about 5 minutes and then remove it to a bowl. Boil down the syrup, pour in any collected juices from the bowl, boil down some more, and when you have something that is thick and sweet in your pan, pour it over your fruit. Do not stress over this (or any) part, but also do not stray far from the stove or you will have burnt sugar in your pan! You can skip all this if you have located nice candied fruit. Maybe Trader Joe's has some?
The dry ingredients:
Just follow the recipe – no particular tricks from me.
This time I used dark brown sugar because that was what was open in my cupboard. Another time I might use light. For some reason I'm out of cloves; I used allspice instead.
Mix them all together in a bowl.
You can do all this while homeschooling, she said, airily, with one studious teenager to watch over. But I have been doing this for years and years! Including pregnant! And nursing! You can do it!
Wet ingredients:
Suet: If you are not used to working with suet, or know what to look for, I herewith provide the following information; and I would like to alert you that some markets do pass off as suet something that is just… fat.
But suet is more than fat. It's the pure “leaf” fat that surrounds the kidneys, and it has a light, delicate, sweet taste that will not make you feel like someone put a steak in your after-dinner treat.
You can tell by looking at it:
Go ahead and buy a bunch, even though you don't need a lot in your recipe, because the birds love suet, and they need a Christmas treat too!
Here it looks almost like there are some really gross guts on this super decayed suet feeder, but actually that's apple peelings on top of pieces of suet. Put the rest in the freezer — you can put it out already frozen.
Below, I've pulled this hunk-o-suet apart so that you can see (and can you almost hear?) how it separates into these chunks, netted with a very thin membrane.
No rinds, no veins, no gristle… if what you see in the store doesn't have this white, rounded appearance, it's not really suet.
Now, suppose you bought almost 2 lbs, like I did, and you want 1/3 lb.
Well, cut your chunk in half. Now you have 2 just-about-1-lb pieces.
Yes, we are eye-balling it. It's fine, because you can pretty much be accurate this way, and anyway, it seriously does not matter.
Now divide one of those halves into three more or less equal pieces. Voila! 1/3 lb. (This is roughly equivalent to 1 1/2 cups of suet after you finely chop it — hopefully in your food processor — and measure it by gently packing it into the measuring cups — gently.)
Remove any larger membranes by pulling gently. The fat will fall away in nice chunky pieces.
See how smooth and lovely it is? You could also render (gently boil) your other pieces and fry things up in it. I remember — I am old enough to remember — French fries from McDonald's that had been fried in suet. Oh my, they were so good that today's fries taste to me like cardboard.
Process until finely grained. To prove to you that we have 1/3 lb here, I weighed it on my scale.
A pound is 16 ounces. One third of that is a little more than 5 ounces.
I promise I didn't cheat!
{Why not use butter, you ask? You could. Or in this Jamaica-style pudding, even coconut oil. The latter would be very stable. The former might — might — become rancid over time, although I doubt it, what with soaking it in all that booze. I have used butter in the past. But suet is nice, it really is!}
Now mix together your suet, eggs, and chopped apple. Since I spaced out and did four, not two, eggs, I didn't use the other liquids (the recipe calls for beer, ale, stout, or milk — sometimes I use cider if I have some funky dregs lying around). I figured I could add it in at the end if things didn't seem moist enough to me, but what with the liquid from the fruits, I suspected I'd be good, and I was right.
So now you have your three basic elements ready. You need baking vessels. In the past I have used the traditional tin charlotte mold (this mold is stainless steel but is the general shape), but it's really too big, with another pan, if you are making two.
I like using these serving bowls. The one in the back has a narrow base, which comes in handy for the rack arrangement in the pot — you'll see.
Generously butter and flour the dishes, and put a round of wax paper in the bottom as well, buttering it too.
There is no point, people, in skimping on this step. Do you want to be miserable or do you want to be happy? Okay.
Start mixing your ingredients in a larger bowl. No skill required.
Notice that the suet does give a lumpy texture. That's dandy.
Using two layers of foil, cover the dishes tightly — tightly or steam will get in there and make everything soggy! — and fasten with a rubber band. Go ahead and use two rubber bands. The other thing that makes these dishes good is that they have a lip to hold the rubber band in place. Look around and see if you have something like that.
Get your big 15- or 20-quart pot, and put something in the bottom to hold the first dish over the water. (If you are making one pudding, you can use an 8-10 quart pot, but be aware that you will have a lot of plum pudding left over.)
If I had two round cake racks, I would use them, but I only have one, and I need it to separate the dishes. So I use this iron trivet. You could use tin tuna cans with the tops and bottoms cut out (you'd need three and they'd need to be very clean or your cake will have a tinge of the sea), or possibly cookie cutters? Not plastic ones!
I put this rack on top of the first dish with the little legs sticking up, so they wouldn't poke through the foil. Now the narrow base of the one dish comes in handy, as it nestles in there, between the legs, really well.
You should have a good amount of water in the pot — up to the base of the first dish. And have a kettle with hot water nearby in case the water boils down. Pop the lid on and set her to boiling! Have the heat at a good steady level — you want steam but not crazy clouds of steam in your kitchen!
Here's what it looks like when you are done! If you had used lighter sugar, it would be lighter. Don't worry! It will be tasty! (Well, so say some. But everyone has to have a bite! Eventually they learn to love it! It's tradition!)
Put one in a tin and one in a plastic container. Pour more of whatever alcohol — brandy, rum, orange liqueur, sherry — you've used all over it, and put wax paper on top before you stick the lid on. The one in plastic you can put in the back of your extra fridge or in the freezer — it will keep for a really, really long time. Two years is my personal max.
The other one you want handy for this Christmas.
And here is last year's serving (which was really plum Plum Pudding, non-island-style). Doesn't it look good?
These last and first photos of the pudding being served are from Rosie! |
Flaming Plum Pudding, Like Mother Like Daughter.
It is good to start this process in the first week of Advent. But now is fine.
Have ready one charlotte mold or two quart-sized oven-proof serving dishes, depending on whether you want one large or two smaller puddings. Know that a smaller one will easily serve 12 people, as each person will only want a spoonful, if that, because it is so rich and dense.
Also, a big pot and two racks; tin foil; two, or better, four, rubber bands.
Cover with 1/4 cup brandy, rum, or cider:
1 cup mixed dried fruits such as golden and or dark raisins, currants, chopped prunes, chopped figs or 1 cup of candied fresh pineapple (see procedure above)
1/3 cup golden raisins
1/4 cup candied orange and/or lemon peel, or add the grated rind of those fruits to the pineapple
Set aside to macerate for about an hour. A day — while you go buy the suet, for instance — is even better.
Mix dry ingredients:
1/2 cup fine breadcrumbs, fresh or dry (if you use the processor to make your crumbs, don't wash it out — later you can chop your apples and suet in the same bowl)
3/4 cup light or dark brown sugar
1/3 cup flour
1/2 tsp. each: cinnamon, ginger, cloves or allspice
pinch of nutmeg
1/2 tsp. salt
3/4 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. baking soda
1/4 cup finely chopped almonds or other nuts
Mix wet ingredients:
2 eggs (the original recipe calls for 4; this year I used 4; often I use 2 — I can't adequately convey how little it matters)
1/3 lb. beef suet, finely chopped (see the note, above, on how to tell if it's suet or just fat) — equal to 1 1/2 cups of finely chopped, lightly packed suet or probably 2 sticks (one cup) butter
1/3 cup peeled and cored apple, chopped
When your one or two dishes are ready — buttered, waxed, and floured as described above — mix all the ingredients together well.
If things seem dry, and this depends on your fruit, add:
up to 3/4 cup stout, ale, beer, milk, or cider
{If you knew you were doing dry fruit, you could put your beer over your breadcrumbs separately from the dry ingredients, and then add that to the wet ingredients. The difference would be slight, but soaked fresh breadcrumbs do add a silky texture.}
In the end, you want the whole thing to be like a loose-ish quick bread batter.
Pour into your dishes and place your dishes, stacked onto each other with a rack in between and tightly covered with foil, over water. Bring to a boil, with the cover of the pot tightly fitted, for 2 hours (for the two dishes) or 3 hours (for the one pudding). When the pudding is close to being done, it will smell like Christmas at your house, and the center will be puffed. You can pull out the dish and open the foil covering — be careful when you open the pot, because steam burns!
Put the dish on the counter and use a knife to test the center. It should slide out clean. If the pudding is still sticky in the center, cover it up tightly again and replace it. You can add hot water to the pot as you go.
Pack up the cooled pudding as suggested above, using plenty of booze. When you serve it, re-heat it in the same dish by warming it in the oven or in another steambath — or in the microwave. Only — try to just heat it through so that your alcohol doesn't burn off.
To light your pudding on fire:
Take a 1/4 cup of brandy or rum and warm it gently. I use the small pitcher I am going to bring to the table. It needs to be quite hot to the touch but not boiling, or the alcohol will boil off and nothing will light!
Put your warm pudding on a warmed serving dish that has sides — no flat cake plates or the flaming liquid will spill right off onto your tablecloth, and you will have ruined Christmas all by yourself.
Bring the serving dish and your warmed pitcher of alcohol into your serving area — and make sure the lights have been turned off! Just like at a birthday party.
Now, strike a match into your pitcher, or have someone strike it as you tip the contents, getting ready to pour. In the dark, you will see the very blue flame of the lit liquid — only, it's hard to see! Look carefully!
Now, pour the liquid slowly over the pudding, letting it soak in. Try not to panic, as you will then send flaming spatters all over. As you begin to pour, hopefully the warmed (but uncooked) alcohol in the pudding will also catch flame, and you will have several minutes of a beautiful show for your family and guests. Let them really ooh and aah! (If things don't alight at first, warm them a little more and try again. It's almost certainly that things weren't warm enough that is the problem.)
Elizabeth says
How fun! I love having a tradition like this. The past few years mine has been this golden marzipan fruitcake: http://pleasantviewschoolhouse.blogspot.com/2006/…
I will have to try plum pudding sometime too.
_Leila says
Elizabeth, I love anything with marzipan and would just eat marzipan straight. I will check out that recipe. Do you ever set it on fire? 😉
Elizabeth says
I never knew I could set it on fire, but now I can thanks to this post!
justamouse says
Does it have a lardy taste? My Dh grew up on his Italian gramma's meatballs fried in lard and he hates it with a passion. It would be an Epic Fail for me if it tasted lardy.
_Leila says
justamouse, I would not wish to be responsible for any type of fail, but no, it's not lardy. Lard is pork fat. This is beef, and it's very light and not lardy. But, please do not blame me if things go wrong.
justamouse says
Lol, I wouldn't blame you! And, I didn't realize there was a difference between the two-awesome! I'm going to give this a try and hopefully, if it goes over well (I'll cover myself with some other desserts, too) we'll start the tradition at our house, too.
Plus, my 6 yo has been running around the house singing “figgy pudding” for weeks now, so perhaps it's meant to be.
Maria says
I love the idea of setting Christ's whole birthday cake on fire!
Also, the candied fruit at MB is truly icky, but if you have Hannaford out there, I've been able to get good dried pineapple for fruitcake in their natural foods bulk section. TJ's has good golden raisins.
Camille says
I love this!! I was actually thinking of roasting a goose this year, just for something different. Back in college, I made a Martha Stewart Christmas dinner from her magazine of some kind of beef roast and Yorkshire pudding. Yorkshire pudding always sounded so Dickens to me so I wanted to try it. Who knew it's just a big popover — but oh so good! We were fighting for seconds! LOL Now I will have to try plum pudding. Thank you!
CarlynB says
We were considering roasting a goose this year, too, until I looked at the price for one. They are quite expensive in my area! I have no idea why, but it was way more than I could work into my budget. I told my husband that I was going to start a “Goose” fund to save up for one for next year. 🙂
Katie says
Any Northern Virginia readers know where to find suet?
Akum says
I like traditions. And it looks delicious!
sarah says
Whoa! What a treat! My kids would love the 'we light the whole cake for Jesus' thing.
Katherine says
The mention of plum pudding always brings a laugh in our family. Twenty years ago, my newly-married sister, with great fan-fare, presented to the entire family her first homemade plum pudding. It was to be the *piece de resistance* of Christmas dessert. When she was ready to serve, she poured alcohol on it, her proud husband held a lighted match to it – nothing happened. She poured more alcohol, lit another match – nothing happened. Repeat… Nothing ever happened, but we ate it. It was delicious and we were all very, very happy for the rest of evening. She discovered later, that she should have warmed the alcohol to accomplish the dramatic presentation she desired.
Margo says
haha – this is a great post! Is the lighting on fire just for show, or does it actually change/improve the flavor?
_Leila says
Margo, I just don't know! I think it does sort of caramelize the top, and certainly the raw taste of alcohol isn't as pronounced as it is (and I did have years where the lighting didn't work, due to insufficient warming) when you don't light it. But this is all very minimal. It's just FUN!
CarlynB says
In my husband's family there is a cranberry pudding recipe that has been passed down for several generations. The cousin who passed it on to us told me that originally the pudding was supposed to be put in a Hills Brothers coffee can and steamed in it. She uses a double boiler for hers. I have yet to perfect my cranberry pudding skills, but I will be attempting it again this year. I think your steaming instructions will help me tremendously. I never grew up with any sort of steamed pudding as part of our holiday traditions. (To my mother pudding was something that you made instantly from a Jell-O package.) Our cranberry pudding is not nearly as exciting as yours, as there is no flaming alcohol involved, but there is a to die for cream sauce that goes over it.
shwell says
Is there a recipe that you can pass along??
I am a New Zealander living in New England, I grew up on Steamed puddings, and now I have a LOVE affair with Cranberries, If I goggled it would I come up with anything close??
A friend of mine bought me a steamer at Marshalls for $5 last year in the spring. The brand is Mastercraft, and was made in the UK. It is very easy to use. It is basically a bowl with a tight fitted lid. I think you would do well with Leila's instructions and the tight fitting tinfoil too.
CarlynB says
I posted the recipe for you on my blog!
_Leila says
CarlynB, of course, “pudding” to the British just means “dessert” generally and “steamed cake” in particular. Whereas for us, it means “custard.”
That is one of the charms of this dessert, in my opinion! 🙂
You can flame anything! Just pour warmed booze and light!
CarlynB says
That's the thing I'm afraid of…flaming my dining room!
Peggy Hogan says
We grew up with cranberry pudding too! It's the best and so simple except this year I struggled with it and couldn't get it cooked properly. I'm thinking maybe i didnt have the heat high enough. It was a real bummer though.
Anna says
Oh, this brings back memories of my Grandma's plum puddings she would make every Christmas. You have inspired me to carry on her tradition! The photos and tips are wonderful, thank you!
Valerie says
Two traditions I bring to our Christmas pudding-making: everyone gets to 'stir the pudding and make a wish' just before it's put into the bowls for steaming; and, for some years now I've kept a tiny slice of pudding in a wee bag in the freezer and incorporate it into the next year's pudding: thus, the pudding I made a few weeks ago contains a few crumbs from all those I've made since 1999. It's summer here in NZ, so I keep my second pudding in the freezer to serve in June at mid-winter. [I use string rather than a rubber band to secure the covering of greaseproof paper and foil over the bowl and to make a loop over the top which facilitates lifting it from the pan when cooked.] Happy Christmas to all – Valerie.
Brit says
I love this idea! I think I might have to hunt down suet today or tomorrow and spend the weekend making plum pudding! Out of curiosity, does it not work if one does not pour alcohol over the top when it is done steaming, and then also does not light alcohol over the top when serving?
_Leila says
Dear Brit, too many \”nots\” for me to answer with confidence 🙂 But you need to let it rest after it steams, firstly. The flavor improves as it steeps in the alcohol.
Second, it will not light if you just warm up the cake and touch a match to it — at least, not in my experience. Which is VAST.
You really have to pour the lit alcohol over it for any kind of impressive display. It just soaks into the cake too fast otherwise.
Kath says
(From the book of Christmas poems I was just reading to the little ones at bedtime…)
Mincemeat
Sing a song of mincemeat,
Currants, raisins, spice,
Apples, sugar, nutmeg,
Everything that's nice.
Stir it with a ladle,
Wish a lovely wish,
Drop it in the middle
of your well-filled dish.
Stir again for good luck,
Pack it all away,
Tied in little jars and pots,
Until Christmas Day.
— Elizabeth Gould
Cris says
Incredible! My British husband grew up with his mother making “pud” in the summer when the fruit was available and fermenting it in the cabinet till Christmas Day. It was lit as well, but in the original mixing of the batter a silver coin was dropped in. Then on Christmas one lucky person got the silver coin in their piece of pudding.
He's been buying overpriced pudding at the import store all the years he's lived in America. This year it was $15 for a cupcake's worth size of it! I told him I would make it for him this coming summer. Now I am a lot less intimidated by this promise! I am considering whether or not I want to attempt this week…
Arielle says
Auntie Leila, I am making this tomorrow! One question – the recipe says 1/3 CUP suet – it is really 1/3 lb like in the instructions?
_Leila says
Ahhh! Yes! I will change it!
Logan says
If anybody is referencing this 10 years later. I steamed mine in an instant pot last year and it was way easier than watching the pot on the stove. This led me to steam my tamales that way too for the feast of Guadalupe and that was also way better! I’ve also altered the recipe with gluten free flour and it turns out it is very adaptable to being gluten free as it is naturally kind of dense cake and so rich it still tastes good. Happy stirring up!
“STIR up, we beseech thee, O Lord, the wills of thy faithful people; that they, plenteously bringing forth the fruit of good works, may by thee be plenteously rewarded; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.”
Heather says
Logan, thank you for this helpful comment! I was looking at this today for a last minute attempt to make a pudding for Candlemas! =) I will file away the tips about the gf flour and the instant pot. Sounds much easier!