How To: Make a Figgy Pudding

When the carolers come to your door, will you be ready? A strategic stockpile of figgy puddings may well be the only thing standing between you, and certain doom. Protect your family from the singing hordes. Make a figgy pudding today!

There are a couple of directions you can take this:
• NPR's figgy pudding (Similar in style to a bundt or rum cake)

• More traditional British-style figgy pudding (With suet! Expect something more dense and fruitcake-esque.)

In memory of Tim Lloyd and Emily Gunther, who had no figgy puddings and have surely been eaten by ravenous carolers by now.

Maggie Koerth-Baker is the science editor at BoingBoing.net. She writes a monthly column for The New York Times Magazine and is the author of Before the Lights Go Out, a book about electricity, infrastructure, and the future of energy. You can find Maggie on Twitter and Facebook.

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Mim

Only 2 days? My family xmas pudding recipe requires weeks of soaking fruit in booze… As my dad says, “there’s a reason we get store bought now.”
Kaleberg

We’ve made fig puddings, but what we really like is persimmon pudding. Our recipes for both use suet which gives it a crispness and great mouth feel. You can steam it in a bowl inside a pot of boiling water, but you can also put it in a glass bowl, cover it with plastic wrap and microwave it for maybe 20 minutes. We usually start steaming it for most of an hour, then give up in disgust and nuke it.
Anonymous

PUDDI PUDDI PUDDI PUDDI FIGGY PUDDI!
RikF

“Piggy pudding?”
“No, figgy pudding. It’s made with figs”
“Oh, sorry”
“And bacon”
“What!”

My favourite version of “We Wist You A Merry Xmas”, courtesy of the esteemed Mr Henson.
Anonymous

That second recipe (with the suet) is not a cake, it’s the fruit wrapped up in the “pastry” dough. The first one is more fruitcake-esque with the fruit actually permeates the dough.

Also, that second one is a weird recipe overall, as I’ve never seen one where it’s done in that style.
roryhamilton

You do realise that in the UK we don’t eat figgy pudding? We sing about it yes, but I’ve never eaten it. Christmas pudding is Figgy pudding’s darker and fig free cousin and is eaten by everyone. An usually bought in the shops as it’s pretty hard to make.
Stefan Jones

How exactly does one “steam” a pudding? Is it put on a rack over boiling water?
- Cassandra
  
  You can also get a pudding mold, which is a metal container with an airtight snapon lid that you submerge in boiling water. I found mine on ebay. It’s pretty small but that’s fine; puddings with suet are really, really dense. It’s way, way easier to make a pudding in a pudding mold than steaming it with a colander, water bowl, etc.
  
  However I make suet pudding at least once a year, so it’s worth it to me to have a special gadget; you may not want to bother.
  
  You can also order vegan suet in the US from these folks, which is where I get mine:
  
  http://www.pennyhapenny.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=1614
- AlexG55
  
  You seal it into a bowl (put a plate over it, then put kitchen foil over that and secure it with a rubber band). You then put that bowl in a big pot of boiling water, and leave it to boil until the pudding’s cooked.
Antinous / Moderator

We had homemade plum pudding made with suet. We mashed the extra suet (since you couldn’t buy less than 5 lbs) into pine cones, rolled them in seeds and tossed them out in the snow for the birds and squirrels.
Anonymous

The second recipe, at least, is confusing. Not only for the lack of directions on how to steam a pudding in a bowl, but also because it mentions you need a half-pint of milk in the ingredients list and then never mentions what you do with it.
PaulR

Figgy Duff:
http://visitnewfoundland.ca/figgyduff.html
(Perfect to give to the Newfoundland Mummers..do a GIS)

Acadians go for Pets de Soeurs. Yum!
jackie31337

Puddi puddi puddi puddi figgy pudding!
Anonymous

If only TSA had let us bring figgy pudding into the airport. Truly, the terrorists have won.
HubrisSonic

Just finished off the leftovers of one. 2 nights ago we had a whole roast goose and figgy pudding for dessert. Yum! Soak your raisins in rum for a nice flavor booster.