Skip to main content
Dessert

Fig Pudding

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Flour the figs and suet.

  2. Soak the bread crumbs in the milk, then add the sugar and the egg yolks, beating well.

  3. Slowly stir in the figs, suet, almonds, and flour mixed with baking powder, followed by the almond flavoring.

  4. Fold in the beaten egg whites.

Steam or poach

  1. Pour the mixture into a buttered mold, filling it three-fourths full, and steam for three hours.

  2. For individual servings, place a star of angelica in the bottom of each small mold, cover with a thin layer of boiled rice, and fill one-fourth full with the pudding mixture.

  3. Place the small molds in a pan of hot water, cover with buttered paper, and poach on the top of the range for 1.5 hours.

Serve

  1. Serve with foamy sauce and optionally pour brandy over it and light it like plum pudding.

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. Almond + flourtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  4. Almond + lemontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Egg whites trap air and set the pudding, giving it a light, structured crumb.
Bread crumbs
Soaked in milk, they absorb liquid and give the pudding a soft, tender body.
Suet
Melts during cooking, adding fat that keeps the pudding moist and rich.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, helping the pudding rise and stay airy.
Flour
Provides starch that gives the pudding structure as it cooks.
Figs
Add natural sweetness, moisture and a jammy texture to the pudding.

The step that matters

Fold in the beaten egg whites. Egg whites hold air that gives the pudding its lightness. Folding gently, rather than stirring, keeps that air from collapsing so the pudding stays tender instead of dense.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Peachfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fig, almond, egg, bread, sugar, milk, 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 →

You might also like

Lemon CakeLemon Cake228 recipesBread PuddingBread Pudding153 recipesLemon IceLemon Ice147 recipesLemon SherbetLemon Sherbet103 recipes