Why it works: Orange and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓
Fig Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the gelatine and syrup
Soak the gelatine in cold water until soft.
Cook the sugar and boiling water to make a syrup.
Pour the boiling syrup over the gelatine and stir until dissolved.
Strain the mixture and let it cool.
Build the pudding
Whip the egg white and combine it with the whipped cream in a bowl set over ice water.
Add the gelatine mixture and stir until it thickens.
Chop the figs and cover them with lemon juice; let them sit while preparing the pudding.
Fold the figs into the pudding mixture and let it chill on ice until thickened.
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.
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Orange + lemontop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together10,634 recipes
Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
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Orange + figtop 6% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together407 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
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Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Fig + lemontop 11% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together763 recipes
Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
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Sugar + figtop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,241 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
- Gelatine
- Sets the liquid mixture into a soft, sliceable structure as it cools.
- Whipped cream
- Adds fat and airy volume, giving the pudding a light, creamy texture.
- Egg white
- Whipped, it traps air and adds lightness to the pudding's foam-like body.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the pudding and, dissolved into syrup, helps smooth its texture.
- Figs
- Provide chewy pieces, sweetness and fruity flavour throughout the pudding.
The step that matters
Folding in the gelatine mixture while chilled on ice. Gelatine begins to set as it cools, so if the mixture thickens too far before the egg white and cream are combined, it can become lumpy and lose volume. Keeping it cold and stirring only until thickened preserves the airy structure.
Swap the fig
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, egg, cream, orange, lemon):
- Vanillafits better
- Raspberryfits about as well
- Blackberryfits about as well
- Figthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg, cream, orange, lemon. 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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