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Dessert

Fig Pudding

A steamed pudding made with butter, sugar, milk, flour, baking powder, and chopped figs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Fig Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, cream the butter and sugar together.

  2. Add the sweet milk and mix well.

  3. In another bowl, combine the flour and baking powder.

  4. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture.

  5. Fold in the chopped figs.

Steam and serve

  1. Pour the batter into a greased pudding mold.

  2. Steam the pudding until cooked through.

  3. Serve with wine or brandy 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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Milk + figtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,026 recipes

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

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + figtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,192 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Provides the structure that holds the pudding together as it cooks.
Baking powder
Releases gas during cooking, helping the pudding rise and become light.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender crumb.
Sugar
Sweetens the pudding and helps tenderise the batter when creamed with butter.
Figs
Add sweetness, chewy texture and fruity flavour throughout the pudding.

The step that matters

Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture. Adding flour in portions and mixing gently keeps the batter smooth and prevents lumps. Overmixing once flour is in develops gluten, which can make the steamed pudding dense and tough.

Swap the fig

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, 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.

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