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Dessert

Fig Puddings

A steamed pudding made with figs, bread crumbs, suet, eggs, and milk, served hot with sauce or butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Fig and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,026 recipes. Both carry methyl 2-methylbutyrate, which smells fruity, apple. The science ↓

Fig Puddings

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the bread crumbs in sweet milk.

  2. In a bowl, beat the eggs lightly and add sugar, salt, suet, flour, and minced figs.

  3. Combine the soaked bread crumbs with the egg mixture and beat for three minutes.

Steam and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into buttered molds with tight tops.

  2. Set the molds in boiling water, placing a weight on the cover to prevent them from tipping.

  3. Boil for three hours.

  4. Serve hot with hard sauce or butter and powdered sugar, and a teaspoon of nutmeg extract.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Beef + milktop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,759 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

  5. Bread + beeftop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

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

What each ingredient does

Dried figs
Provide the main fruit flavour and sweetness, and moist pockets throughout the pudding.
Bread crumbs
Absorb the milk and form the soft, cake-like body of the pudding.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and help set the pudding as it cooks.
Beef suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding rich and tender as it steams.
Flour
Adds structure that helps the pudding hold its shape.

The step that matters

Keep the molds tipped-proof in boiling water. If the molds tip or the water level drops, the pudding cooks unevenly and water can seep in. A weight on the lid and a steady simmer keep steaming gentle and even.

Swap the fig

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

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Figthe original
  4. Coconutfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, egg, beef, milk, sugar, 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.

More fig pudding recipes

Steamed 14Sauce 7English 3 See all 340 →

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