What Is The Difference Between Figgy Pudding Vs. Fruitcake (2024)

FAQs

What Is The Difference Between Figgy Pudding Vs. Fruitcake? ›

Figgy pudding is fruity and very dense, and typically strongly flavored with brandy or rum. Its closest relative would probably be fruitcake, although figgy pudding is typically spicier and crumblier.

The Differences

Ingredients: Figgy pudding primarily contains dried fruits, breadcrumbs, and suet, while fruitcake is packed with a variety of candied and dried fruits, nuts, and spices. Texture: Figgy pudding has a moist and dense texture, while fruitcake is a dense cake with a chewy, fruity consistency.

Christmas cakes are also commonly made with pudding while a fruit cake uses butter, however there are Christmas cake recipes that do contain butter. The traditional Scottish Christmas cake, also known as the Whisky Dundee, is very popular.

If it contains figs, it is called a figgy pudding. Plum pudding usually has raisins, not plums, since "plums" was once used to describe raisins. This iconic English dessert is similar to our American fruitcake with a few variations.

A cake is something sweet served on a plate and eaten with a fork. A pudding is something sweet served in a dish with cream or custard and eaten with a spoon. A pudding can also be savoury, such as steak and kidney, or an unsweetened savoury suet roll containing meat, This we eat with a knife and fork.

Fruitcake or fruit cake is a cake made with candied or dried fruit, nuts, and spices, and optionally soaked in spirits. In the United Kingdom, certain rich versions may be iced and decorated.

You're forgiven if you think Christmas Pudding is the round English version of an American fruitcake. While it has similarities, they are altogether different. Both improve with age and include dried fruits, chopped nuts, hearty spices, and steep in a cold dark spot for weeks, but that is where the similarities end.

As time went on other dried fruits were used in the cake but the word “figgy” stuck around. By the Victorian era raisins and currants were typically the fruits to use, although confusingly raisins (and dried fruit in general) were known as “plums” at the time — hence why the dish is sometimes called “plum pudding.”

SPAM^® Figgy Pudding brings a blend of warm spices and seasonal ingredients that will be the star in many wintertime recipe favorites.

What do British people call American pudding? ›

American puddings are closer to what the Brits would call "custard." A British pudding is a dish, savory or sweet, that's cooked by being boiled or steamed in something: a dish, a piece of cloth, or even animal intestine.

Modern cheesecake is not usually classified as an actual "cake", despite the name (compare with Boston cream "pie"). Some people classify it as a torte due to the usage of many eggs, which are the sole source of leavening, as a key factor.

The reason for using the word 'pudding' instead of dessert is actually based on the British class system. Traditionally, pudding referred to homely and rustic desserts that were commonly eaten by the lower classes, such as spotted dick and rice pudding.

Figgy pudding today

That's likely why the dish also goes by a number of other names including plum porridge, Christmas pudding, and steamed pudding. And whatever the name, people still eat it today. In Britain, in particular, figgy pudding is still a Christmas staple.

Its origins go as far back as the Middle Ages, when dried fruits became more widely available. The cost of ingredients was so high that in the 17th and 18th-century fruitcakes were only made for special occasions, such as weddings and holidays, particularly in Victorian England.

Much like a “full breakfast,” Mervis says the ingredients used in figgy pudding can often be a source of contention, but the dish is typically made with dried fruit (traditionally raisins, sultanas, currants and figs), brown sugar or treacle, mixed spices, breadcrumbs, suet, eggs, and alcohol (often brandy, sherry or ...