Skip to main content
Dessert

Fig Pudding

A pudding made with figs, brown sugar, milk, suet, bread crumbs, and egg, boiled in a double boiler.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chop the figs and suet together.

  2. Add the bread crumbs, brown sugar, milk, and egg to the mixture.

Cook and serve

  1. Boil in a double boiler for 4 hours.

  2. Serve with lemon 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. Fig + milktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,026 recipes

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

  2. Milk + breadtop 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. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  5. Fig + sugartop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked 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

Figs
Add fruit sweetness, moisture, and a jammy flavor as they cook.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding rich and tender.
Bread crumbs
Provide the body of the pudding and soak up the milk.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and a caramel note, and helps keep the pudding moist.
Milk
Supplies moisture that softens the crumbs and suet.
Egg
Binds the mixture so it holds together when set by heat.

The step that matters

Boil in a double boiler for 4 hours. Long, gentle steam heat cooks the pudding evenly and sets it without drying it out. If the water boils dry or the heat is too fierce, the bottom can scorch and the pudding can turn tough or uneven.

Swap the fig

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

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

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

Bread PuddingBread Pudding153 recipesSoft Ginger BreadSoft Ginger Bread85 recipesOrange Potato BreadOrange Potato Bread80 recipesBrown Bread PuddingBrown Bread Pudding47 recipes