Name: Fig Pudding
Ingredients: ½ lb suet, chopped; ½ lb bread crumbs; ½ lb flour; ½ lb chopped apples; ½ lb dried figs, chopped; 2 oz sugar; 3 eggs; 2 oz candied lemon peel; 1 tablespoon treacle

Why it works: Apple and fig match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 238 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Fig Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the pudding

Mix the suet, bread crumbs, flour, chopped apples, dried figs, sugar, eggs, candied lemon peel, and treacle thoroughly.
Transfer the mixture to a buttered basin.

Cook

Boil in a pot for 2 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.

Apple + figtop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together238 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Bread + figtop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together374 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Fig + lemontop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together763 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together22,662 recipes

Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).
Bread + appletop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,790 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs: Bind the mixture and help set the pudding as it cooks.
Suet: Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and rich as it cooks.
Bread crumbs: Add bulk and absorb moisture, giving the pudding body.
Flour: Adds structure so the pudding holds together when steamed.
Dried figs: Provide sweetness, chewy texture and the main fruit flavour.
Treacle: Adds sweetness, deep colour and a molasses-like flavour.

Swap the lemon

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

Vanillafits better
Raisinfits better
Pearfits better
Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, flour, apple, fig, sugar, 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.