Skip to main content
Dessert

A Plain Fig Pudding

A pudding made from bread crumbs, flour, suet, figs, and eggs, boiled for several hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

A Plain Fig Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the batter

  1. Mix the bread crumbs, flour, suet, and chopped figs together in a bowl.

  2. Add the eggs and mix until well combined.

  3. Grease a bowl and pour the mixture into it.

Cook and serve

  1. Boil the bowl in water for 4 hours.

  2. Serve with cream and sugar.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Bread + flourtop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together10,383 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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

Bread crumbs
Bulk the pudding and give it a soft, absorbent body that holds the other ingredients.
Flour
Provides structure so the pudding holds together when cooked.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and rich as it cooks.
Figs
Add natural sweetness, moisture, and a chewy texture to the pudding.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and help it set firm as the proteins cook.

The step that matters

Keep the water boiling for the full 4 hours. The pudding cooks slowly through gentle, steady heat. If the water boils down and the bowl is not kept submerged, the pudding dries out or cooks unevenly, so the water level must be checked and topped up.

Swap the fig

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, flour, 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