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Dessert

Fig Pudding

A sweet pudding made with beef suet, figs, bread crumbs, sugar, lemon rind, eggs, and served with a butter sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and fig work together. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 374 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Fig Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the pudding

  1. In a large bowl, mix the shredded suet, grated lemon rind, bread crumbs, coarse sea salt, brown sugar, and chopped figs.

  2. Separate the eggs, beating the yolks and whites separately until fluffy.

  3. Fold the beaten egg yolks into the mixture, then gently incorporate the egg whites.

  4. Pour the mixture into a mold and boil for three hours.

Make the hard butter sauce

  1. For the hard butter sauce, beat together ½ cup butter, 1 teaspoon vanilla, 2 egg whites, 1 tablespoon brandy, and 1 cup sugar until stiff.

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. Bread + figtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together374 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Lemon + figtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together763 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  3. Beef + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,032 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Sugar + figtop 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

Beef suet
Adds fat and richness, keeping the pudding moist as it cooks.
Bread crumbs
Provides the bulk and structure that hold the pudding together.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and, when beaten, lighten its texture.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and a molasses-like depth of flavor.
Figs
Add sweetness, moisture and fruity flavor throughout the pudding.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Egg whites are whipped to trap air, which lightens the pudding. Folding them in gently keeps that air, so the pudding stays light rather than dense.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Apricotfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, bread, sugar, fig, 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

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