Skip to main content
Dessert

Fig Pudding

A baked pudding made with figs, eggs, milk, suet, bread crumbs, sugar, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 the batter

  1. Soak the bread crumbs in milk.

  2. Beat the eggs with sugar and salt until light.

  3. Add the suet and floured figs to the egg mixture.

  4. Mix well and pour into a buttered mold with a tight lid.

Steam and serve

  1. Set the mold in boiling water and boil for three hours.

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. Milk + beeftop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,759 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

  5. Bread + beeftop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure as they set during steaming.
Bread crumbs
Absorb the milk and give the pudding a soft, tender body.
Suet
Adds fat that enriches the texture and keeps the pudding moist.
Figs
Provide sweetness, fruity flavor and moisture throughout the pudding.
Flour
Helps thicken the batter so the figs stay suspended in it.
Sugar
Sweetens the batter and adds to its soft, tender texture.

The step that matters

Keeping the mold sealed and water boiling. A tight lid keeps steam inside so the pudding cooks through evenly and stays moist. If the water stops boiling, the pudding cooks slowly and can turn heavy and dense.

Swap the fig

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

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

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

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