Blueberry Duff. A traditional Newfoundland favourite!
Blueberry duff. A steamed pudding here in Newfoundland, sometimes served with dinner, sometimes as a dessert with blueberry or rum sauce.
Originally published October 2008.
A blueberry duff is a type of steamed pudding. It is most often, as shown here, boiled in a cotton bag in the same pot with the vegetables and salt beef.
An essential for a traditional Newfoundland Jigg's Dinner. It goes by several different names; my friend Ellen, from St. Vincent's, for example calls it "Lad in da Bag".
Traditions vary across the province with some people who only know this dish as a dessert course, being served with a brown sugar or rum sauce; others know it as a side dish served with the other components of a Jigg's dinner.
This is a very close cousin to the Figgy Duff, which doesn't really have figs at all. You can read a lot more about this sort of pudding/duff in that post.
For those who have been asking, there is an alternative to the pudding bag. You can get a pudding steamer on Amazon.
Looking for more Newfoundland-inspired cuisine?
If you'd like to see more traditionally inspired recipes from our province, please check out this collection on some of our Most Popular Newfoundland recipes.
Like this Blueberry Duff recipe?
You'll probably enjoy browsing the photo links to our other Newfoundland inspired recipes in our Newfoundland Food Category and if you are a seafood lover there are plenty of great ideas in our Fish & Seafood Recipes Category.
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Blueberry Duff
Ingredients
- 2 ½ cups flour
- ¾ cup sugar
- 2 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 to 1 ½ cup blueberries
- ⅓ cup melted butter
- ¾ cup milk
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Instructions
- Blend together the flour, sugar and baking powder.
- Add the blueberries and toss to distribute them in the flour mixture.
- Add the melted butter, milk and vanilla extract all at once.
- Mix all together with a wooden spoon just until a soft dough is formed.
- Put dough into a pudding steamer or a wet heavy cotton pudding bag, tying the bag with a piece of butcher string but leaving about an inch of slack at the top to allow the pudding to expand.
- Boil gently for approximately one and a half hours to 2 hours.
- Remove from steamer or pudding bag, slice and serve.
Nutrition Information
Yield
8Serving Size
1 gramsAmount Per Serving Calories 312Total Fat 9gSaturated Fat 5gTrans Fat 0gUnsaturated Fat 3gCholesterol 22mgSodium 195mgCarbohydrates 54gFiber 2gSugar 22gProtein 5g
The nutritional information provided is automatically calculated by third party software and is meant as a guideline only. Exact accuracy is not guaranteed. For recipes where all ingredients may not be used entirely, such as those with coatings on meats, or with sauces or dressings for example, calorie & nutritional values per serving will likely be somewhat lower than indicated.
I love this duff we called it blueberry grunt.. either way it's yummy.
Do you know of a version of this recipe that is gluten free and still nice,? A new member of the family is gluten intolerant
I've never made it with guten free flour before and I'd be skeptical to be honest. It's going to be hard to replicate the texture of this without gluten.
Interesting Inky. What we knew as blueberry grunt was a sort of dumpling cooked in blueberry jam. Where are you from?
Thank You for the recipe!
I have my grandmother's recipe for Lassie Duff, but could not find nor remember the recipe for Blueberry duff. This is going into my recipe box immediately!
the recipe is just the same as my late mothers .i had jiggs dinner today and that was only thing missing.i am originally from cornerbrook,now ontario october 3,2010 .john
I grew up on this... now if I could just find the recipe for lassie duff!
Did you find it? All I keep finding is with raisins. Thanks
is there another way to cook it if you dont have the cloth bag?
Some people cook it in a large or med plastic butter container with Lin on
I've never done that but have in a metal steamer.
Metal pudding steamer is fine. That is what I use, make sure the lid is tight or cover with foil;
You can cook it in a pudding steamer as well.
I recently baked this in the oven with tin foil (or a fitted cover) over a glass baking dish and the effect was a steamed pudding very close to the boiled version.
Looking for the recipe for the rum butter sauce for the steamed blueberry sauce???
Oh gosh, I don't think that's on the site. I'll put it on my to do list.
Did you ever put a rum sauce for blueberry diff on your site?
Yes!
Any way to make this recipe gluten free and still taste like regular blueberry Duff? This one is by far the best recipe I've tried
I guess you could try gluten free flour but the texture would be hard to replicate for sure.
just like mom use to make.I was raised up eating this blueberry steamed duff...
I looked everywhere for this recipe for Christmas jigs dinner.
Thank you
Just wanted to know how to steam, I remember seeing top of bag hanging over and how much is it sumerged in water and do u rotate it from side to side? Thx Anita
It isn't necessary to submerge it all the way, the pudding cooks in steam really. I do give it a turn once , usually.
Looking for the recipe for the rum sauce.
I normally add a couple of shots of rum to my caramel sauce.
Do you know how long approximately it would take to cook in a pressure cooker? I always do my salt beef and veggies that way
No idea. I don't won a pressure cooker.