A Happy Suet Holiday!

A most remarkable dessert for the season

Suet, the hard fat found around animals’ kidneys, is a wonderous thing in my estimation. Throughout baking’s history, particularly pies, it has been used essentially because it was available when butter was not. More recently, the reason to favor it over butter is due to its high melting point, which ensures flakier crusts and lighter biscuits. You may be thinking suet would leave a meaty taste behind but it doesn’t. Then again, another good use is to follow my mom’s practice of laying a fat slab across the Sunday roast beef to keep the meat moist and to add a richness to the gravy. It will do the same for any meat.

These days, though, it’s very hard to find except in the bird feed department of a pet shop. Suet is outright banned for human consumption in New York for the appalling reason that it’s not good for you. I’m not going to get into the foolish politics of this because there are so many other foodstuffs killing the population—specifically: sugar, salt, and additives—in many prepared and fast foods that are consumed every day, which suet is very likely not.

I recommend befriending a butcher who doesn’t mind slipping contrabands under the counter. Hunters, as well, are good sources, but if their main purpose is to feed their family, you may have to sweet-talk them. If the whole idea of suet is not appealing to you, I understand there is a vegetarian version, and you may substitute vegetable shortening, but the results will be a poor cousin.

My beautiful hunk

I have a hunk of it in the freezer, given as a birthday gift from one son who has a smoker and a pass to a restaurant supply warehouse where huge cuts of meat are sold. My present is currently defrosting on the counter because I’m about to make Mrs. Cratchit’s plum pudding for Christmas dinner. It’s best to make this now, two weeks before, to give the pudding time to soak in a vast quantity of brandy or whiskey.

The first step is to open up A Christmas Carol and skip to the part where Ebenezer Scrooge is visited by the ghost of Christmas present. (Yes, we have other books in the house beside A Christmas Carol. But, as you read earlier in the work, not in December….)

Mrs. Bob Cratchit, the wife of Scrooge’s ill-treated clerk, has tended the family’s festive dinner all Christmas day—a scrawny goose stuffed with sage and onions, boiled potatoes, and a bowl of hot fresh apple sauce. Not enough to feed five young children, including her lame invalid son, Tiny Tim, let alone their parents. And yet the cooking smells of such a dinner are so delectable as they drift from the house’s ill-fitted windows that they have pulled two of the children away from the fanciful sweets in the baker’s window down the street. When the family has, at last, gathered around the table with the banquet spread before them, the Cratchit family is sure there is no one else in England, including the Queen herself, who will have a finer Christmas dinner.

Afterwards, Mrs. Cratchit retreats to the washing shed behind the house where the dessert has hissed and sputtered all day long in the fireplace. Nervously, she raises a ball of cloth as heavy as a cannonball from the bubbling water in the wash bucket and carefully lowers it to a pretty plate. She sips in her breath as she unwraps it and happily releases it upon seeing that the black ball won’t fall apart. She pours some cheap brandy over it, places a tiny sprig of holly on top, and, finally, sets it on fire and carries it blazing to the table.

A great success, Mr. Cratchit proclaims! Such a sight is Mrs. Cratchit’s famous plum pudding!

Such a sight I will hope mine to be!

Mrs. Cratchit’s Famous Plum Pudding

This is not a pudding, or does it contain plums. Consider it a moist spice cake, made even more enticing if a good plop of brandy hard sauce is spooned on top.

The following recipe will serve 16 to 20 people.

Butter for greasing a mold or bowl

1 1/2 cups sifted flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon grated nutmeg

1/2 teaspoon grated cloves

1/4 teaspoon ground ginger (I used fresh, chopping it in the food processor)

2/3 cup firmly packed brown sugar

1 1/2 cups plain breadcrumbs

1 cup shredded suet

1 cup chopped mixed dried fruit (I used papaya, apricots, apples, and raisins to great success)

3 eggs, lightly beaten

1/3 cup molasses

3/4 cup milk

Butter extremely well the inside of a fancy mold or a round cooking bowl. Set aside.

In a mixing bowl, sift together the dry ingredients. Mix in brown sugar, breadcrumbs, suet, and dried fruit, making sure the suet is well distributed and the fruit dusted so it won’t clump together. Blend in eggs, molasses, and milk. The batter will be pretty stiff, a little like bread.

Pour the mixture into your prepared mold or bowl. If you don’t have a lid, cover with two layers of aluminum foil and be sure to crimp the sides tightly to form a seal. Set the mold/bowl in a stock pot big enough to hold it. Surround it with 2 inches of boiling water. Cover the pot, lower the heat so the water remains at a steady simmer, and steam the pudding for at least 2 hours. You will probably need to add more hot water to keep 2 inches around the pudding. You can tell the pudding is done when there’s a slight resistance to the touch.

Take off the lid, and slowly pull the mold or bowl out of the pot. Place a serving plate over the bottom and carefully turn the pudding over. It should slip easily out.

Pour several tablespoons of brandy over the pudding. It will sink in, and it’s quite fine if the brandy puddles on the plate around the pudding. Set it ablaze before bringing it to the table. Serve with Brandy Hard Sauce.

Brandy Hard Sauce

1 stick softened butter

2 cups powdered sugar

1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon grated nutmeg

1/4 cup brandy (or to taste)

Beat the butter in a mixing bowl at medium speed until it’s very light and creamy. Little by little, add the powdered sugar and spices, making sure they’re well combined. Beat in the brandy.

Scoop into a serving bowl, cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate. When you’re ready to serve, let it sit out a little to soften it up the bring to the table. Guests should feel free to slather it over their plum pudding.