Make steamed puddings

with a touch of melancholy in the air. I feel some kind of semisweet ache is about. Pervasive. I wonder if others sense it also? This is a good time to make bread; I’ll pound the hell out of something and bake it.

I bought a package of suet yesterday for those winter puddings.

...were too much of an x-factor with so many friends coming for dinner, so I went with a baked ginger cake that was dense and soft and puddinglike. I will still make a suety carrot pudding to try out in January, maybe for Rabbie Burns’ Day. Och, aye!

Next week I’m going out, probably on a blustery afternoon, to get the ingredients. Then I will make small carrot puddings for Christmas dinner. Some of them won’t have any mix-ins at all, but I’ll experiment with the rest.

The plan is to make Christmas puddings next month and let them steep in whatever’s on hand. I made puddings with all that candied fruit before, but I’m thinking this year I should make carrot puddings- think of that!- like dense carrot cakes with pecans, dates, and a cointreau-laced creme anglaise.

You know, it has been over fifteen years since I made steamed puddings for Christmas. They’re great, though; there’s kind of a small thrill in collecting the ingredients: suet, candied fruit, dates, pecans and such. They need to steam for something like nine hours, and then they want to be flamed and sauced. Yeah! I’ve got about ten pudding basins waiting.