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Dessert

Fig Pudding

A steamed pudding made with figs, raisins, molasses, and butter, thickened with flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Raisin and flour match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,075 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Fig Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, combine water, molasses, and butter.

  2. Stir in baking soda, chopped figs, and raisins.

  3. Add flour gradually until the mixture is as thick as cake dough.

Steam and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a greased pudding mold.

  2. Steam for 2 hours.

  3. Serve with your choice of pudding sauce.

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. Raisin + flourtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Fig + raisintop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together737 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Molasses + raisintop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,577 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Fig + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,192 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Molasses
Adds dark sweetness and moisture, and gives the pudding its rich flavor.
Baking soda
Reacts with the molasses acidity to help the pudding rise and lighten.
Figs
Add chewy texture and concentrated fruit sweetness throughout the pudding.
Raisins
Add chewy texture and concentrated fruit sweetness throughout the pudding.
Flour
Provides structure, setting the batter into a thick, cake-like dough.

The step that matters

Add flour gradually until the mixture is as thick as cake dough. Flour sets the structure as it hydrates and gluten develops. Adding it all at once can make lumps and a dense, uneven texture, so adding it gradually lets you stop at the right thickness.

Swap the fig

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (molasses, butter, egg, raisin, flour):

  1. Figthe original
  2. Vanillafits about as well
  3. Datesfits less well
  4. Currantfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against molasses, butter, egg, raisin, flour. 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.

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