Growing up singing Christmas carols, I became really curious about King Wencenslas, but mostly about this figgy pudding.
I wasn’t curious to look it up and make it, because I instinctively knew it was out of my league, which is anything chocolate. My imaginings of it grew with the years, as did my knowledge of food, and history.
Often on the Food Show, I remark about how glad I am to be living now with the conveniences we enjoy for cooking, and certainly the glamour of modern dining. I also marvel at practices of eating in the Middle Ages and the gluttony so prevalent, at least for one class. The others ate scraps or starved.
I had no real intention of ever coming into actual contact with Figgy Pudding. And then not long ago I had a guest on The Food Show (airs weekdays 2-4pm on WGSO 990AM) who would make close contact with this medieval dessert a reality.
The book is called A Booze and Vinyl Christmas by Andre Darlington, a fun food writer whose focus is more on booze. His books are cocktail-based but also include sporadic recipes for whatever makes sense with the theme.
This wonderful book goes through recording artists of the last 75 years, focusing on their Christmas music, interspersed with recipes for drinks and a few food recipes. Flipping through the book I was entranced until I saw a recipe for Figgy Pudding. Figgy Pudding??? A recipe for Figgy Pudding? I had to try it.
The hardest thing about doing the dessert was getting the ingredients. I was afraid to look at the recipe, fearing it would be gross. This is hardly what I would call authentic. It has chocolate chips in it, and that is a New World crop. But I imagine the real one from the Middle Ages would be gross, And where to find suet anyway?
It’s a long recipe with some oddities in it. Bread crumbs, for example. I've never seen bread crumbs in a cake. The other ingredients were a little more regular: a few kinds of zests, and nutmeg and the like, of course.
My daughter lent me a gorgeous Bundt pan, and when she came over I was ready to pour it. Sbe remarked on how lumpy the batter was. I told her the odd pieces sticking out were butter that didn’t melt. She looked at the recipe and wondered why they did it that way. I was so proud of myself for following it exactly. She guessed that maybe the original recipe called for beef fat which would be lumpy at first and then melt into the cake. This was a reasonable facsimile.
It baked for two hours in a water bath. I was shocked at how fabulous it came out. I turned it over on a family heirloom cake plate my paternal grandmother brought to our house weekly. It made for a gorgeous presentation and a sweet memory.
And then it was time to cut it. First I had to make the sauce, which meant I first had to find some Brandy. In our very large collection of spirits, I found everything but Brandy, and subbed it out for some Cognac.
When we sliced into the texture it grabbed our attention. It was unlike anything I had seen before. It was actually a little like a pudding, or a custard.
This was at the other end of the spectrum from my personal tastes in dessert, but I liked it enough to finish it. A person who is into custard might really love this. It’s unique.
We'll never know what the real Figgy Pudding was like in the Middle Ages, but this modern version will do just fine.
It’s so Christmas! And we hope yours was wonderful.
