This figgy pudding recipe is made with dark chocolate, strong black coffee, and fresh Black Mission figs to create individual pudding cakes baked in ramekins. They’re rich, warmly spiced, and deeply flavored. Serve them warm with a dusting of powdered sugar.
What Is Figgy Pudding?
Figgy pudding is a traditional British steamed dessert associated with Victorian Christmas celebrations. The traditional version is a dense, heavily spiced steamed pudding made with dried fruits, suet, breadcrumbs, and brandy. Cooks typically make it weeks or months in advance and store it, then flame it with brandy at the table on Christmas Day.
This version takes the spirit of figgy pudding and modernizes it. Instead of dried fruit and suet, it uses fresh black figs. Instead of brandy, it uses strong black coffee and dark cocoa powder. Instead of a large steamed pudding, it bakes in individual ramekins in about 25 minutes. The result captures the warmth and festivity of the original but tastes like something you’d actually want to eat today.
The Sonoran Fig Connection
Figs have a 400-year history in the Sonoran Desert. Franciscan missionaries planted the first fig trees in the region in the early 1600s as they established missions throughout what is now southern Arizona and northern Mexico. Those fig trees still grow in Tucson today. Using fresh Black Mission figs in a Christmas pudding recipe connects a global holiday tradition to a very local, centuries-old agricultural story. That connection is what makes this recipe distinctly Sonoran rather than simply a chocolate dessert.
Ingredients
- 8 fresh black figs such as Black Mission or Brown Turkey
- ½ cup milk
- 2.5 tablespoons of butter melted
- 1 egg
- 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
- 1.5 teaspoons baking powder
- ½ cup all-purose flour
- ¾ cup brown sugar
- ¼ cup almond meal
- 2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder. I use Ghirardelli's Premium Baking Cocoa.
- ½ teaspoon cinnamon
- 1 cup of strong black coffee
- powered sugar to garnish
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Whisk together the milk, egg and vanilla in a medium sized mixing bowl. In a separate bowl whisk together the flour, baking powder, chocolate powder, cinnamon and 1/4 cup of brown sugar, leaving 1/2 cup of sugar for the sauce. Be sure to break up any lumps. Slowly add the milk and egg mixture to the dry mixture and combine using a rubber spatula. Set aside.
- Pour the coffee into a saucepan over medium heat. Stir in the remaining 1/2 cup of sugar and bring to a boil.
- Cut half of the figs into quarters. Fill 4 large (approximately 8-10 oz. capacity) ramekins half-way with the chocolate mixture. Push the fig quarters into the batter and gently top with a whole fig.
- Spoon the coffee sauce around the fig, leaving about 1/8 inch of room at the top.
- Bake for 25-30 minutes or until firm. Remove from oven and sprinkle with powdered sugar. Serve warm.
Notes
