This summer I was lucky enough to be given a quantity of fresh figs from the tree owned by my friend Gail. I popped most of them in my dehydrator so that I could have dried figs for use later in the year.
And later is now: I decided to use them to make figgy pudding ready for the festive season. What follows is my take on a traditional recipe, as I've opted to make it vegan and alcohol free. Its a bit of a faff to make, but a great way to use up an hour or two on a cold, wet December weekend.
Ingredients
85g sunflower margarine
250g dried figs
50ml orange juice
250g mixed sultanas and raisin
1 apple peeled, cored and grated
60g light muscovado sugar
2 tbsp dark treacle
70g breadcrumbs
70g self-raising flour
1 tsp allspice
Recipe
- Grease the inside of a 1 litre pudding basin with a little vegan marg, and cut a circle of parchment paper to sit on the bottom.
- Cut a square of parchment paper 10cm larger than the diameter for the pudding basin and a similar sized square of aluminium foil. Place the parchment square on top of the foil and grease it with more vegan marg. Fold the square roughly in half and then fold it back leaving a 2-3cm pleat. Place to one side.
- Separate out 85g of the dried figs and roughly chop them.
- Put remaining dried figs, vegan margarine and orange juice into a food processor and whizz them to a smooth paste
- Use a spatula to remove the paste from the food processor into a large mixing bowl, and then add chopped figs, sultanas, raisins, grated apple, sugar, treacle, breadcrumbs, flour and allspice.
- Mix well for 5-10 minutes to give a consistent, heavy mix. If doing this for a family festive dessert, now's the time to let all the kids have a go stirring
- Put the mixture into the greased pudding basin, pressing it down well. Cover with the pleated parchment and foil (greased parchment facing down) and tie the cover down with string.
- Place the pudding basin on a metal trivet or scrunched up foil laid in the bottom of a large saucepan. Boil a couple of litres of water in a kettle and then pour this into the pan, upto roughly half way up the pudding basin.
- Put a lid on the pan and give it a low heat to keep it gently simmering for 2.5 hours to steam the pudding. Top up with boiling water if needs be.
- Remove the basin, allow to cool and then replace the parchment and foil cover. Store somewhere cool, dry and dark.
On the day that you want to serve this, put the repeat steps 8 and 9, but this time only for 1.25 hours to allow the pudding to warm through. Serve with thick cream or custard.
