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Dessert

Fig Pudding

A steamed pudding made with figs, suet, bread crumbs, almonds, sugar, eggs, milk, and baking powder.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Fig and almond match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 519 recipes. Both carry alpha-pinene, which smells pine, turpentine. The science ↓

Fig Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the batter

  1. Flour the figs and suet.

  2. Combine the bread crumbs, almonds, and baking powder.

  3. In a separate bowl, beat the egg yolks and add to the mixture.

  4. Beat the egg whites until stiff and fold them into the mixture along with the milk.

Steam

  1. Pour the mixture into a covered pudding mold, filling it three-quarters full.

  2. Steam for three hours.

  3. For individual servings, fill cups three-quarters full, place in a pan of hot water, cover with greased paper, and boil for 1.5 hours, adding boiling water as needed.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Fig + almondtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together519 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  2. Fig + milktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,026 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

  3. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  4. Fig + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together374 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Egg whites beaten stiff trap air, and the yolks enrich and bind the pudding, giving a light, set texture.
Bread crumbs
Absorb the milk and eggs to form the body of the pudding.
Figs
Add moisture and sweetness, becoming soft and jammy during steaming.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and rich as it steams.
Baking powder
Releases gas during steaming, helping the pudding rise and lighten.

The step that matters

Folding in the beaten egg whites. Stiff whites hold the air that lightens the pudding. Folding gently, rather than stirring, keeps that air from collapsing, so the pudding stays light instead of dense.

Swap the almond

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fig, bread, sugar, milk, egg):

  1. Almondthe original
  2. Pecansfits about as well
  3. Walnutfits about as well
  4. Chestnutfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against fig, bread, sugar, milk, egg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

More fig pudding recipes

Steamed 14Sauce 7English 3 See all 340 →

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