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Dessert

Fig Pudding

A steamed pudding made with bread crumbs, figs, suet, sugar, eggs, milk, and a sherry sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Fig and sherry work together. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 85 recipes. Both carry ethyl isobutyrate, which smells fruity, ethereal. The science ↓

Fig Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the pudding

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

  2. In another bowl, mix milk, eggs, and sugar.

  3. Add the milk mixture to the bread mixture.

  4. Steam the mixture for 3 hours.

Make the sauce

  1. Beat 2 eggs until light.

  2. Gradually add 1 cup sugar to the beaten eggs.

  3. Mix in 3-4 tablespoons of sherry.

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 + sherrytop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  2. Fig + milktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,026 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

  3. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Sugar + saucetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,147 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Figs
Provide the main flavour, sweetness, and moisture throughout the pudding.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the steamed pudding moist and tender.
Bread crumbs
Give the pudding a soft body and help hold the figs and fat together.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and help it set as it cooks.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps give the pudding a softer crumb.
Milk
Adds moisture that softens the bread crumbs and keeps the batter loose.

The step that matters

Steaming for 3 hours. Steaming needs steady, gentle heat and enough water in the pot for the full three hours. If the water boils dry, the pudding can scorch or cook unevenly, and it may not set properly.

Swap the fig

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figthe original
  3. Applefits less well
  4. Pineapplefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, sugar, egg, milk, sherry, sauce. 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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