"Plum Duff with Hard Sauce" by Representative Nancy Johnson
Have you ever eaten a duff? Have you ever slurped on hard sauce? Me neither. And as far as American food goes, I feel like I’ve tried all categories, so when I discovered this scintillating dish that had never crossed my lips before, I had to make it: Representative Nancy Johnson’s Plum Duff with Hard Sauce.
Chef Nancy Johnson
Republican Congresswoman from Connecticut
As always, I followed the recipe word for word from the only Republican in Connecticut probably, no alterations:
INGREDIENTS
2 eggs
1 cup brown sugar
1 cup flour
1 tbsp milk
1/2 cup shortening
2 cup cooked, cut up prunes
1 tsp baking soda
pinch of salt
FOR THE HARD SAUCE
4 tbsp butter
1 tsp vanilla
2 tbsp cream
Enough confection sugar to make a consistency thicker than frosting
INSTRUCTIONS
1) Mix eggs, shortening and sugar.
It’s been a while since I’ve worked with shortening, and it was much harder, shinier, and glossier than I remembered. Kind of like coconut milk but harder; brill cream but probably better-tasting.
2) Stir in rest of ingredients. Bake in a sheet or two cake pans for 20 to 30 minutes at 375°.
3) Mix ingredients for hard sauce and refrigerate to harden. Cut and serve warm with hard sauce.
I tasted the hard sauce to make sure it was, as the ingredients say, thicker than frosting. It was indeed as sweet as frosting and after being in the fridge for an hour, it firmed up to a consistency close to old Play-Doh.
Voila! If you want to actually watch me eat it, go to the CwC Instagram or TikTok. It came out smelling nice — holiday spices from the cooked prunes, probably — and it browned nicely on top. However, cutting into it, it didn’t hold quite as well, and the sopping wet prunes came in small chunks. The hard sauce melted after a time, creating a buttery drizzle that reminded me of classic diner pancakes. All in all, a figgy pudding, sort of. But with more laxative consequences.
Verdict:
This is a tough one to categorize, because every other bite was a winner…which means ever other bite was a loser, filled with too much limp prune and not enough of the cakey core. A 50-50 dessert — 50% good Christmas, 50% bad Christmas.
