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Dessert

Fig Pudding

A steamed pudding made with figs, suet, flour, breadcrumbs, eggs, and buttermilk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and buttermilk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,721 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Fig Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash and chop the figs, then mix with sugar.

  2. Shred and chop the suet, and combine with the dry ingredients: flour, breadcrumbs, baking soda, and salt.

  3. Beat the eggs and add buttermilk to achieve a soft consistency.

  4. Combine the wet and dry mixtures.

Steam and serve

  1. Turn the mixture into a greased mold and steam for 2 hours.

  2. Turn out onto a hot dish and serve with fig sauce.

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. Flour + buttermilktop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,721 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Sugar + buttermilktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,973 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Fig + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,192 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

Figs
Provide the main fruity sweetness and moist, dense body of the pudding.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and tender as it steams.
Flour
Forms the structure that holds the pudding together.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and help it set firm during steaming.
Breadcrumbs
Absorb liquid and add a light, soft texture to the pudding.
Baking soda
Reacts with the buttermilk to lift the batter and lighten its crumb.

The step that matters

Adding buttermilk to reach a soft consistency. Too little liquid makes the pudding dry and crumbly, while too much makes it heavy and wet. Buttermilk must be added gradually so the batter is soft but still holds its shape before steaming.

Swap the fig

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

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Lemonfits better
  4. Figthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, flour, egg, buttermilk. 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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