Simple Suet Pudding Recipe (2024)

The weather has been warming up in the UK, but there’s still enough of a chill some evenings that I need to make something filling to warm up little tummies, especially after swimming lessons or a hike with the scouts. This simple suet pudding recipe is a real winner in our family.

I often turn to steamed puddings as they are so easy to make and fit easily into a busy schedule.

I thought I’d share the simple suet pudding recipe I make very often, and that is always wolfed down here at Conker Corner. I would quite honestly choose to eat this over a fancy chocolate pudding or pavlova, or just about any dessert in fact. It’s great if you need a more filling pudding after a soup or salad for main. It uses only store cupboard ingredients, so is easily swapped in to your menu plan with no notice. And it is so quick to make!

Jump to the printable Simple Suet Pudding Recipe

The real key to making this and any other steamed pudding as quickly and easily as possible is using a slow cooker and a lidded pudding basin.

If I had to use a stove top steamer, I wouldn’t make this anywhere near as often as I do – and it can’t be left alone while you leave the house. Using a slow cooker also leaves the hob and oven free for whatever else you are cooking. Likewise if I had to fiddle about wrapping a pudding basin with greaseproof, foil and string, I wouldn’t make steamed puddings – I hate the waste and it would actually double the amount of time this pudding takes to make.

I have a plastic 2 pint pudding basin with a lid similar to these ones at Just Pudding Basins. Yes, it’s plastic, but I’ve been using it for years, I’m never going to buy another one and I am not using greaseproof, foil and string every time I make a pudding. It fits neatly inside my very cheap and cheerful slow cooker.

A real plus point for steamed puddings is that they cook for a long time so you have no last-minute faffing to do around meal times. You can attend to the rest of your meal and your hungry children. And if you make them in the slow cooker as I do, you can even leave it cooking whilst you’re out taking kiddies to scouts, ballet, swimming or whatever. This pudding will come to no harm if it goes half an hour beyond the stated cooking time.

If you like this suet pudding recipe, do check out my Mincemeat Suet Pudding recipe too, and see here for 12 more simple steamed pudding recipes.

Without further ado, here is the recipe – scroll down for a printable version.

Simple Suet Pudding Recipe

Fill and boil the kettle. Put a little hot water in the bottom of the slow cooker and start pre-heating it on High whilst you assemble the pudding.

Butter the pudding basin and lid.

Mix the dry ingredients together in a large bowl. I always use beef suet – I much prefer the flavour and I believe in doing the animals the justice of eating every part of them. But if you choose to use vegetable suet (you will want to check for the ethical use of palm oil) the recipe is just the same.

Since this is a recipe I inherited from my mother, I use the tablespoons she always used – the kind you actually use for serving at the table. I’m not sure what relationship this bears to the 15ml measuring spoon type of tablespoon…

You can use any kind of dried fruit you like, or a mixture.

You now need to add enough milk to bring the mixture together into a soft dough. When my mother dictated this recipe to me, she said “enough milk to make it into a podge” and I think that is the best description I can give. Add milk a little at a time until you see it form a podge. Mixing with a knife in a cutting motion rather than with a spoon prevents you overworking the dough.

Place the podge in the pudding basin.

Cover the basin with a lid, or if you’re using a traditional pudding basin, cover it in greaseproof then foil in the usual way. However, I find that when you are ‘steaming’ in the slow cooker, where the basin is in contact with the water, rather than a in stove-top steamer where it isn’t, it is better to wrap the foil around the basin from the bottom up, rather than top down as you normally would. This prevents water getting to the greaseproof, which (depending on the greaseproof) then wicks up and on to your pudding.

Place the pudding basin in the slow cooker and top up the cooker with boiling water until it comes about half way up the pudding basin.

Cook for 2 hours on High (or simmer for the same length of time in a steamer) but no harm will come to it if it has to stay in for a bit longer.

Remove the pudding and turn it out of the basin on to a plate. It should be a nice golden colour on the outside.

We have always served this with either brown sugar or golden syrup. Some people might serve it with custard. Cream or ice cream would be all wrong!

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For more steamed puddings you can make in the slow cooker, see this post: 12 Steamed Puddings from One Recipe.

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