Chocolate Figgy Pudding

If you love the idea of an old fashioned Christmas, complete with authentic old fashioned recipes, then you'll love this variation on the traditional figgy pudding or plum pudding. It's made with chocolate! You get the best of both worlds - tradition and chocolate. The good part is that this is still an authentic vintage recipe published in the 1920s by chocolate experts for generations - The Ghirardelli Chocolate Company.

Vintage Image: Files of Nancy Oram

We all like Figgy Pudding - especially if it's chocolate!

3 eggs

1-1/2 cups brown sugar

4 cups soft bread crumbs

1 cup finely chopped suet

2 tablespoons flour

1-1/2 cups chopped dried figs

3/4 cup Ghirardelli's Ground Chocolate

1/2 cup hot milk

3/4 teaspoon salt

Beat eggs, add sugar, bread crumbs, suet, figs (dredged with flour), chocolate mixed with hot milk, and salt, stir thoroughly. Steam three hours in a greased mold. Serve hot with a hard sauce. Ten average servings.

Basic Hard Sauce

1/2 cup butter

1/2 cup white sugar

1 tablespoon brandy

1 almond extract

Mix butter and sugar and beat in the brandy and extract.

Vintage Image: Files of Nancy Oram

You can purchase a pudding mold made especially for steamed puddings, or you can use something you already have in your kitchen. Just make sure it can sustain your heat source.

2 cups sifted pastry flour

2 level teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon salt

Yolks of 2 eggs, beaten light

2/3 cup sugar

4 tablespoons melted butter

1/2 cup cold water

Whites of 2 eggs, beaten dry

1-1/2 ounces melted chocolate

Sift together, three times, the flour, baking powder, salt and cinnamon. To the yolks add the sugar, butter and water, and stir into the dry ingredients. Add the whites of the eggs. Divide the mixture into two parts and add the chocolate to one part. Dispose the two parts in a buttered mold to give a marbled appearance. Steam forty-five minutes. Serve with Vanilla Sauce.

Vanilla Sauce

Boil 2 cups of sugar and a cup of water six minutes; add 2 tablespoons of butter and a teaspoon of vanilla extract.

Vintage Image: Files of Nancy Oram

IrishAmericanMom.com gives step-by-step directions on how to use a crockpot or steamer to steam your pudding. This might be the best way of all!

Especially at holiday time, it seems like every oven and burner is being used. A crock pot can help you multitask and set your pudding aside to steam.

Photos used with permission are credited in individual modules. Every other photo on this lens resides in original form in my personal collection.