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Dessert

Fig Pudding

A steamed pudding made with figs, suet, breadcrumbs, sugar, eggs, nutmeg, and served with a butter‑sugar‑vanilla sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Fig and vanilla match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 324 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Fig Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the pudding

  1. Combine figs, suet, bread crumbs, sugar, eggs, and nutmeg in a bowl.

  2. Mix well and pour into a greased pudding mold.

  3. Steam for 3 hours.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. Beat butter until creamy, then add sugar and vanilla.

  2. Serve the sauce over the pudding.

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 + vanillatop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together324 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  2. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Fig + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together510 recipes

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

  4. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Nutmeg + vanillatop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,781 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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

Figs
Provide the main fruity sweetness and moist, chewy texture in the pudding.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and rich as it steams.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and give the pudding a tender, light body.
Eggs
Bind the mixture together and help it set as it cooks.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, creamy texture to the sauce.

The step that matters

Steam for 3 hours. Steaming must stay gentle and steady so the pudding cooks through and stays moist. If the water boils dry or the steam drops, the pudding can turn dense or undercooked in the centre.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Clovefits less well
  4. Allspicefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against fig, bread, sugar, egg, butter, vanilla. 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 →

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