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Dessert

Fig Pudding

A steamed pudding made with bread crumbs, figs, suet, sugar, milk, eggs, lemon juice, flour, baking powder, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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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

  1. Mix the bread crumbs and suet together.

  2. Add the chopped figs and brown sugar, then mix in the beaten eggs and lemon juice.

  3. In a separate bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, and salt. Mix the dry ingredients into the wet mixture.

  4. Steam the mixture for 4 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. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Fig + lemontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together763 recipes

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Bread crumbs
Provide the bulk and body that hold the pudding together.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and rich as it steams.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and add structure as they set during steaming.
Flour
Gives the pudding structure and helps it hold its shape.
Baking powder
Releases gas that lightens the pudding and helps it rise.
Figs
Add sweetness, chewy texture and fruity flavour.

The step that matters

Steam for the full 4 hours. Steaming gently and steadily cooks the eggs and starches through and keeps the pudding moist. Cutting the time short leaves the centre undercooked and dense.

Swap the lemon

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

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

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