Celebrating Sweet and Steamy Christmas Pudding

Enlarge this image toggle caption Coburn Dukehart, NPR Coburn Dukehart, NPR

While most of us have sung about figgy pudding since our kindergarten Christmas pageants, my guess is that most of us have never eaten the treat, maybe even have never laid eyes on it. We don't have much of a Christmas pudding tradition in America, but the way I see it, now — a week before the holiday — is the perfect time to start a pudding revolution and make up for our lapse.

Figgy pudding — aka plum pudding, plum porridge, Christmas pudding and steamed pudding — is a quintessentially British sweet with a history that might go back to Shakespeare's time. We know it was around in the mid-1600s, because that's when the English Puritans banned it — and Christmas, too. There probably aren't too many sweets that have been banned, but then there aren't too many sweets that are as alcoholic as this one.

The pudding, a steamed cakelike treat that's chockablock with dried fruits — mine has figs, raisins, cherries and cranberries — is a sturdy sweet that gets its good keeping qualities (you can make it now and stow it away until Christmas), its lovely moistness and its bona fides for being banned from alcohol: brandy or cognac and rum in the mix, and the same over it, if you want to present it aflame.

Here are the reasons I think we should all be making Christmas pudding — immediately:

• It's delicious. It's sweet and fruity, spicy and boozy, sturdy, generous, filling, and, in its own simple way, exotic: It will taste like nothing else in your holiday spread. (OK, it's a little like fruitcake — I was trying to avoid mentioning that — but there is nothing green, bright red or fluorescently yellow in it.)

• It's fun to make. The batter for the cake comes together very quickly (you don't need anything more special than a whisk in the equipment department) and cooks in a most unusual way: It gets steamed for a couple of hours, so while it's cooking, you hear a rat-a-tat-tat as it rocks gently in its water bath, and you have the pleasure of being in a kitchen fragrant with sugar, spice and spirits.

• It's beautiful. The pudding is made in a Bundt, Kugelhopf, turban or other ring mold and emerges from its steam bath honey brown and lavishly studded with fruit. It's even more beautiful brought to the table in flames.

• It's a keeper. You can make it tonight, and it will keep until Christmas. In fact, it will get better because the fruits, brandy and rum will have more time to flavor the cake more deeply. Once it has cooled, wrap it up in plastic film, stow it in the fridge and just re-steam it before you're ready to serve.

• It's got a lovely ritual attached to it. Everyone in the house is meant to have a hand in making the pudding, so everyone should grab the whisk and, together, give it at least one turn around the bowl while — here's the best part — making a wish. If you'd like, you could even stir a little trinket into the batter. Do this, and the person who finds it will be guaranteed good luck.

The recipe that follows is my take on this traditional sweet. I hope you'll enjoy it, and I hope that when the carolers come to the door singing, "We want some figgy pudding," you'll get as much of a giggle as I do out of being able to give them just what they asked for.