A dark brown, dome-shaped steamed molasses pudding turned out on a white ironstone plate, with one wedge cut from it showing a moist, close crumb. — Steamed molasses and spice suet pudding with a wedge cut out.

Fireless Cooker Suet Pudding (1909)

Name: Molasses Suet Pudding
Prep time: 20 min
Cook time: 2 h 10 min
Total time: 2 h 30 min
Cuisine: American
Ingredients: 1 tbsp butter, for the basin; 1½ cups all-purpose flour; ¾ tsp baking soda; ¾ tsp salt; ¼ tsp ground ginger; ¼ tsp freshly grated nutmeg; ⅛ tsp ground cloves; ½ tsp ground cinnamon; ½ cup finely chopped beef suet; ½ cup molasses; ½ cup buttermilk

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A fireless cooker suet pudding from The Fireless Cook Book, 1909: a dark steamed pudding of suet, molasses, buttermilk and flour, spiced with ginger, nutmeg, cloves and cinnamon.

By The Forgotten MenuPublished Oct 28, 2026

Recipe makes: One 1-quart pudding, 6 servings
Prep: 20 min
Cook: 2 hr 10 min
Total: 2 hr 30 min

Mitchell boiled it half an hour and left it five hours in the fireless cooker. On the stove it steams about 2 hours in a covered pot, then rests 10 minutes before you turn it out.

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Steamed molasses and spice suet pudding with a wedge cut out.

The story behind the recipe

This is a plain winter pudding, dark with molasses and spiced with ginger, nutmeg, cloves and cinnamon, held together with chopped suet and raised with soda and sour milk. Margaret J. Mitchell printed it in The Fireless Cook Book in 1909, set in a buttered one-quart mold inside a six-quart pail of water, boiled half an hour and then left five hours in the cooker.

Could you steam a pudding in a box?

The pudding was the fireless cooker’s hard case. The University of Wisconsin tried to “steam” a suet pudding in its insulated box in the experiments it reported in 1908: boiled an hour, three hours in the box, and it came out “not at all well done,” needing two more hours on the stove. Mitchell’s preface names the doubters who said that “raised breads and puddings cannot be cooked in them,” and answers that they had not learned to manage the cooker.

Her directions give the box more to work with. The pudding stands in water two-thirds of the way up the mold, so the water stores heat around it, and it stays in the cooker five hours. The story of the Wisconsin trial and its gas figures is in Why Did Kitchens of the 1910s Cook Dinner in a Box?

Making it today

Here the pudding steams on the stove for about two hours, the usual time for one this size in modern steamed-pudding recipes, and never goes into a box: hours of slow cooling in an unheated box is what food safety guides warn against. Buttermilk stands in for Mitchell’s sour milk, which few kitchens keep now, and it reacts with the soda the same way. Ask a butcher for beef suet and chop it fine, or grate it from frozen; packaged shredded suet is the other choice. A Fireless Cooker Pot Roast (1909) from the same book makes the dinner it would follow.

Mix and sift the dry ingredients and add the suet. Mix the milk and molasses and add them to the dry mixture. ...

Margaret J. MitchellThe Fireless Cook Book (New York: Doubleday, Page & Company, 1909), Suet Pudding, pp. 157–158

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Ingredients

For One 1-quart pudding, 6 servings. Quantities are shown as written.

Quantities as written here, for One 1-quart pudding, 6 servings.

Butter, for the basin1 tbsp
All-purpose flour1 1/2 cups
Baking soda3/4 tsp
Salt3/4 tsp
Ground ginger1/4 tsp
Freshly grated nutmeg1/4 tsp
Ground cloves1/8 tsp
Ground cinnamon1/2 tsp
Finely chopped beef suet1/2 cup
Molasses1/2 cup
Buttermilk1/2 cup

Ingredients as written here

1 tbsp butter, for the basin
1½ cups all-purpose flour
¾ tsp baking soda
¾ tsp salt
¼ tsp ground ginger
¼ tsp freshly grated nutmeg
⅛ tsp ground cloves
½ tsp ground cinnamon
½ cup finely chopped beef suet
½ cup molasses
½ cup buttermilk

Equipment

1-quart pudding basin or heatproof bowl
Parchment paper, foil and kitchen string
Large pot with a lid, deep enough to hold the basin
Trivet, metal rack or upturned saucer
Kettle
Mixing bowl and sifter

Instructions

Butter the pudding basin well with the butter for the basin. Cut a round of parchment and a larger square of foil to cover it, and fold a pleat across the middle of both so the pudding has room to rise.
Set the trivet in the large pot, pour in a few inches of water and bring it to a boil. Fill the kettle and bring it to a boil too.
Sift the flour, baking soda, salt, ginger, nutmeg, cloves and cinnamon into the mixing bowl. Add the suet and toss it through the flour with your fingers until every piece is coated.
Stir the molasses and buttermilk together and pour them into the dry mixture. Stir just until no dry flour is left. The batter will be thick and sticky.
Scrape it into the basin and level the top. It should fill the basin about two-thirds full. Cover with the parchment and then the foil, and tie them tightly under the rim with string.
Lower the basin onto the trivet. Pour in boiling water from the kettle until it comes two-thirds of the way up the side of the basin. Cover the pot.
Keep the water at a steady simmer and steam the pudding for 2 hours. Check the water every half hour and top it up with boiling water to keep the level.
Lift out the basin and remove the covers. The pudding is done when it has risen, feels springy on top and a skewer pushed into the center comes out clean. If not, cover it again and steam 15 minutes more.
Let it stand 10 minutes, run a knife around the edge and turn it out onto a warm plate. Serve hot, in wedges.

Nutrition

300calories per serving

Recipe makes: One 1-quart pudding, 6 servings
Servings: 6

Estimated per serving (6) from USDA FoodData Central values for beef suet, molasses, buttermilk, flour and butter.

Recipe notes

When adjusting quantities

Mitchell’s quantities fill a 1-quart mold and serve 6 to 8. Double it in a 2-quart basin and steam about an hour longer.

Notes

Quantities mentioned in these notes don’t change when you adjust the servings.

The ingredients and their amounts are Mitchell’s. Our changes are buttermilk for her sour milk, a parchment and foil cover, a trivet, a steady simmer for 2 hours in place of her half-hour boil and five hours in the cooker, a skewer test and a 10-minute rest. Her water is warm when the mold goes in; ours is already boiling. She serves this pudding without a sauce; just before it, she serves her Steamed Apple or Berry Pudding with warm apple sauce and hard sauce, and either can go with this one. To cook it in a slow cooker, stand the covered basin on a folded cloth or trivet in the cooker, pour in boiling water to come halfway up the basin, and cook on high with the lid on for 3 to 3½ hours. Chill leftovers within 2 hours and steam them again until hot through, 165°F (74°C). Contains gluten.

Scaling changes the ingredients only; pan sizes and cooking times need their own judgment. To adapt this recipe further, try the recipe tool at TuneMyRecipe (opens in a new tab), our sister site.