It is probably 'Plum pudding' the traditional english/irish Christmas dessert. It is a steamed pudding, with lots and lots of dried fruits. Usually served with Brandy butter or Whiskey sauce. The more often you steam it the better it gets. Many people make their plum puddings at the end of the summer or early fall - os that they will be nicely matured and more complex by Christmas.
Hope this helps.

It will be just fine to eat.

This is a steamed Christmas/plum pudding.

Here's what you are probably intended to do: Reheat the pudding - in the microwave is fine. Heat the brandy, pour it over the pudding, and light it. Serve with the sauce - which you can also warm up.

If the jar of pudding was sealed and sat out overnight, DO NOT eat it. There is a high chance of getting botulism. The seal forms an anaerobic enviroment in a neutral pH product. At room temps, the botulium will thrive.

light the brandy then pour it over the plum pudding. kills all the bugs!

If it is indeed plum pudding (and assuming that it has already been steamed for a few hours) then the usual method of storage of such puddings is at room temperature - the pudding matures in flavor during storage as well. I'm puzzled as to why it was frozen in the first place - it's not traditional and it shouldn't be necessary for preservation. Providing it was steamed adequately and the seal was not broken after cooking, then the pudding itself should still be ~ sterile. As a card-carrying microbiologist, I'm not sure where the "high chance" of botulism comes from in these instances.
If you microwave it, definitely use a low setting and check frequently - the sugars and fruits will burn/carmelise fast.

My family has a tradition of carrot pudding on Christmas Eve and yes, it is more like a sort of cake and is served with a brandy (hard) sauce. Lots of fond memories of family sharing this scrumptuous dessert for the holidays. In fact, I think maybe Grandma hit the bottle once too much one year ... she sure was happy and talkative! LOL

Steaming and water bathing will NOT kill botulism spores. Why do you think a pressure cooker is required for canning medium and low acid foods like vegetables and meats? Go read the food safety books, the ball canning book warnings and the section in microbiology regarding food borne toxins.

Sorry, but we Brits don't call all desserts pudding. Puddings are a particular group of desserts, often involving steaming, baking and/or suet. Steamed suet puddings are some of the most fantastic things in the world, even if they do sometimes make you feel like you've just eaten a custard covered brick. Superb for feeding to growing schoolkids (who do tend to call most desserts "pudding", since most of the desserts they'll be fed are in fact puddings).

Things like rice pudding, Christmas puddings, spotted dick, jam rolypoly, crumbles and etc are called puddings. Things like mousses, pannacottas and so on are definitely desserts. Cakes are never called pudding - they're cakes.

Sorry to sound grumpy with this correction, but it irritates me to hear generalisations like that, especially when they're not right!

@FoodieGreenie, sorry that annoys! I do have British friends, though, who routinely and commonly refer to any dessert as pudding. (As in, "What's for pudding tonight?") Maybe it's a regional thing?

My husband is a biologist and he pointed out that if there is botulism on this cake, it was there before you opened it and left it out overnight. Botulism takes quite a long time to grow and produce toxin, especially enough toxin for you to notice. The reason canned goods can have it is because they are left for a long time, so if they are contaminated by a faulty seal, there is a long period of growth.

According to him, the last case of botulism poisoning that resulted in a fatality in the US was when a couple left chicken soup out on their stove and went on vacation for two weeks, then returned and ate the soup. I can't confirm that, but that's the kind of thing biologists tend to sit around and talk about, so I trust him.

E. coli or salmonella could theoretically have contaminated your cake if it was handled, but they are easily killed by a quick run through the microwave.

Sorry to be pedantic, but Faith, Brits say "what are we having for pudding?" because in England pudding (and sweets) is often used as a synonym for the *word* dessert, not for any and all types of dessert. Do you Americans say "what are we having for cake/pie tonight?"

FoodieGreenie, I know what you mean about generalisations. Sorry AT guys, but you do tend to be a little wide-eyed and clueless whenever you talk about anything outside North America. Yours is the only country for whom pudding is something gooey and gelatinous, after all!

In my experience, the word pudding is used in two ways by the British; a pudding is a steamed cake-like dessert, often with an accompanying sauce, whereas pudding, (minus the 'a') is dessert in general. My Grandma, who's very anglo-aussie, often says 'What's for pudding?''.

PS: (almost) jinx!

First of all, I'm sure it's fine. I would eat it an enjoy it. Fun gift, especially if the gifter is British.

re: e coli/salmonella/heating things up to make them "safe". Yes, the germs themselves can be killed by heating, but they also produce toxin that makes you sick that is NOT killed by heating. If something germy has been allowed to sit around in an environment conducive to growth, heating isn't going to make it "safe".

Flambé! Should be fine after a good flambé.

Original Poster here. Thanks for all the advice and information! We did eat the pudding, sauce, and brandy, and did not get botulism (phew).

The gift-giver is actually Canadian. Any Canadians care to weigh in on the sociolinguistic question?

Canadian here.

It was a Christmas pudding. No socio-linguistic issues -- a Christmas pudding is a Christmas pudding everywhere, especially where there are British roots (i.e., Canada).

Shows up in literature from Dickens to Agatha Christie.

Hope you steamed the pudding (they are usually steamed for about 15 to 20 minutes in a steamer), heated the sauce, and ignited the pudding with the brandy as intended. What a lovely and thoughtful gift!

I'm sorry...why didn't anybody commented on what is a "Spotted Dick" from FoodieGreenie?

That's the real issue here.

Spotted Dick is a pudding that has raisins or currants in it. It's a pretty standard British dessert. It's not a dick, it's not shaped like a dick, it doesn't resemble in any way a dick.

@RosieGreenie: No, I've never heard an American say "What are we having for cake/pie tonight?" That's the point. We don't use "cake/pie" as another word for dessert. However, by your own admission people do say "What are we having for pudding tonight?" and thus those people do use pudding and dessert interchangeably. And if you used pudding as a synonym for dessert, then you are saying that desserts are puddings and puddings are desserts. That's how synonyms work.

Sorry to be antagonistic. In fact, I am with you. I think AT doesn't do a good job with foreign things and even sometimes with non-foreign things. It feels as if they sometimes post things hastily without it being looked over by another editor or thought through fully.

People say what's for "pudding", or what's for "afters" by way of reference to a particular course - and generally because a nursery pudding used to be the norm.

Not all sweet things are puddings, and no-one would call a cheesecake (for example) a pudding if they were talking about it - the original argument was about the reference to a cake being thought of as a pudding - not about a particular course in a meal meal referred to as pudding.