Popular dessert traditions for the Christmas holidays changed dramatically during the second half of the 20th century, as we moved further away from the European influences that had shaped our tastes for generations.

I’ll offer two examples of holiday desserts that once were standard fare and now are treated as anachronisms in many circles: the fruit cake and figgy pudding. Both desserts developed from the idea that dried or candied fruit could pass for a confection. Once upon a time such food trends reflected the availability and cost of ingredients.

My mother, who was born in 1919, often made apricot bread and date bars as a treat for my brother and me. Today, the ingredients in those recipes make them closer to health food or trail mix than anything we generally call dessert. But when my mother was a child, dried fruit was the thing.

Many of us now think we know better and are more likely to have chocolate and caramel dancing in our heads than sugar plums. Moreover, when we think of pudding today, we think of something akin to Jell-O instant pudding, not the sweet bread that defines traditional puddings.

I began pondering this evolution the other day when a friend gave me a slice of figgy pudding with a variation of hard sauce spread on top. It was better than I remembered, and I decided to take up figgy pudding’s cause, even though it’s probably far too nutritional to be placed in the same category as modern desserts. (Fruit cake I’ll leave in obscurity, thank you.)

Among my reasons for staging a figgy pudding revival is that this holiday dessert has the distinction of being memorialized in a carol. As it happens, the second and third verses of “We Wish You a Merry Christmas” are, essentially, the carolers’ demand for figgy pudding. Imagine a horde of singers on your doorstep insisting in 4-4 time that you hustle out with the figgy pudding and a bit of nog. After the first verse, which everyone knows, the carol segues into musical blackmail:

Oh, bring us a figgy pudding;

Oh, bring us a figgy pudding;

Oh, bring us a figgy pudding and a cup of good cheer

We won’t go until we get some;

We won’t go until we get some;

We won’t go until we get some, so bring some out here.

There you have it. The following recipe, which is from the Web site www.toomanychefs.com, calls for the traditional steam bath method of cooking and can be made in a bundt pan. Be sure to maintain the water level during baking.

Figgy Pudding

16 oz. dried figs, stemmed and cut into a 1/4-inch dice

1 3/4 cup whole milk

1 1/2 cup all-purpose flour

1 cup sugar

2 1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon ground nutmeg

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1 teaspoon salt

3 eggs

1/2 cup (1 stick) melted butter

1 1/2 cups bread crumbs

1 tablespoon grated orange peel

Hard Sauce:

1 1/2 cup confectioner’s (powdered) sugar

1/2 cup butter (1 stick) softened

2 tablespoons brandy

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 2 1/2 quart bundt pan with spray or butter.

In a medium saucepan, heat milk and figs over medium-low heat but do not bring to a boil. Cook for 10-15 minutes, stirring occasionally. The figs will perfume the milk, and the milk will soften the figs. The mixture may look curdled, but don’t worry.

In a medium bowl, mix flour, sugar, baking powder, nutmeg, cinnamon and salt.

In your mixing bowl, beat eggs 1 minute on high. Reduce speed to low and add butter, bread crumbs, orange peel and warm fig mixture.

Slowly incorporate flour mixture. Beat until just blended. Spoon the mix into the greased bundt pan. If using an intricate mold/pan, push mix deep into all crevices so it will take the shape when baked. Level top as much as possible. Cover the mold with a piece of aluminum foil greased on one side, greased side down.

Place the mold in a roasting pan and place on oven rack. Fill with hot tap water 2 inches up the side of the mold.

Bake for 2 hours or until the pudding is firm and it is pulling away from the side of the bundt pan.

Make the sauce by mixing all the sauce ingredients together until creamy.

Remove the pudding from the water bath. Remove the foil and cool on a wire rack for 10 minutes before unmolding. Invert bundt pan onto a serving plate/cake stand and remove mold. It should come away easily.

Serve warm with sauce. The sauce is more like frosting at room temperature, but if you heat it a bit, it will melt.

Makes 12 servings