Steamed pudding

Steamed pudding is a variety of English pudding with a long tradition in the British cuisine, basically consisting of a combination of ingredients that are steamed inside either a special pudding basin or another similar vessel suitable for steaming.

This quintessential treat comes in both savory and sweet versions, and it is further divided into two categories, namely suet puddings, and sponge puddings. Christmas puddings belong to the first category, which uses suet as its main ingredient, whereas the latter calls for a mixture of eggs, flour, and butter.

In the past, puddings were commonly cooked by boiling enclosed within anything from cloths, pastries, skins, or animal intestines. The initial vessels had eventually given way to specially designed pudding basins and molds, and steaming became the preferred method for cooking puddings as it yielded more refined results.

Steamed pudding is best enjoyed warm, and it includes an array of sweet varieties such as spotted dick, roly-poly pudding, and sussex pond, and savory varieties such as pease pudding, minted lamb pudding, and pork and apple pudding, among others.