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Dessert

Fig and Raisin Pudding

A steamed pudding made with figs, raisins, suet, sugar, milk, eggs, bread crumbs, cinnamon, cloves, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Fig and Raisin Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Mix together figs, raisins, suet, cinnamon, cloves, sugar, sweet milk, eggs, bread crumbs, and salt.

  2. Steam the mixture for 3 hours.

  3. Serve with a hard or liquid 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. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Raisin + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  3. Fig + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together614 recipes

    Shared aroma: cinnamyl acetate (sweet aromatic, cinnamon).

  4. Fig + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together404 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Figs
Add sweetness, body and moisture to the pudding.
Raisins
Add chewy texture and concentrated sweetness.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and tender.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and help it set as it cooks.
Bread crumbs
Absorb the milk and give the pudding its structure.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps keep the pudding moist.

The step that matters

Steaming for 3 hours. Long, gentle moist heat cooks the eggs and sets the crumbs and fat evenly through the pudding. Steady steam, rather than harsh boiling, keeps the texture tender instead of dry or rubbery.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cardamomfits about as well
  3. Clovethe original
  4. Allspicefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against fig, raisin, cinnamon, sugar, milk, egg, bread. 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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