A Christmas Suet Pudding

Week 49: #52 Ancestors – Family Recipe

By Eilene Lyon

Holidays at Grandma Halse’s house included an old-time dessert: suet pudding. This is not a gooey type of pudding, but a very moist raisin cake served with a glazing sauce. It gets it’s rich, dark-brown color from a generous measure of molasses.

Because we were served Grandma’s homemade recipe from an early age, there was no “yuck” factor to overcome, though young ones today may turn up their noses. (Perhaps a name change is in order. Just “Christmas Pudding” or “Raisin Cake” perhaps?)

Of course, vegetarians and vegans will have nothing to do with it. That’s because suet is beef fat. It comes from around bovine kidneys or subcutaneously from the loin. Unlike smooth, rendered pig fat (lard), suet is firmer and crumbly. Suet can be clarified, in which form it is known as tallow. Suet and lard are essentially the animal-fat equivalent of margarine or shortening.

The only suet I use these days is prepackaged as cakes of bird food. Some people like to make their own bird cakes, so it may be possible to find suet readily available at your grocery store. It can certainly be obtained by special request.

What about that pudding, though?

I will attest that I always looked forward to it and found it quite yummy. I only made it once myself, for a couple reasons. The process of cooking it is by steaming, not baking, requiring a special container and a deep kettle. And because if I served it, I’d probably be the only one eating it—and who needs the extra calories?

Crisco and coffee used to come in smooth-sided, metal cans with tight-fitting metal lids. That is what Grandma used to steam her suet pudding. One journalist found another method, using a bowl, parchment paper, and aluminum foil. (The article has a pudding photo, second one in the top scroll.)

Grandma’s recipe can be a little hard to follow as written, so below is a slightly modified version. For the sauce, she wrote two versions. Both include vanilla, which is an interesting side story.

After Grandpa died, Grandma eventually went to work in the chemistry department at the nearby university (Oregon State in Corvallis). One of the professors brewed his own homemade vanilla that he gifted to Grandma regularly. She shared it with family and that’s what we used in baking and in ice cream, etc.

My cousin Brian, many years later, deduced that the university chemist actually created his “vanilla” in the lab, using no vanilla beans! Brian gifted me a bottle of the genuine article he’d made himself—in the kitchen.

Christmas (Suet) Pudding

• 1 cup suet (ground in a food processor)
• 1 cup molasses
• 1 cup milk
• 1 cup raisins
• 2 ½ cups flour
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• ½ tsp ginger
• Pinch of salt

Mix all ingredients and put into a metal container with a tight metal lid (like an old coffee/Crisco can) and place inside a large kettle. Fill with water to within an inch of the can lid (must be over the level of the pudding batter). Cover and bring water to a boil. Simmer/steam for two hours.

Sauce

Cream a cup of sugar with a ½ cup of margarine or butter. Add 3 cups of water. Bring to a boil and thicken with corn starch until the consistency of cream. Flavor with vanilla.

Slide the pudding out of the can and slice into serving size. Place each slice in a bowl and pour over a generous amount of sauce. Eat up!