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Dessert

Fig Pudding

A steamed pudding made with figs, bread crumbs, eggs, suet, milk, sugar, salt, and baking soda.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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

Make the batter

  1. Soak the bread crumbs in the milk.

  2. Add the beaten eggs, sugar, salt, suet, and figs.

  3. Beat the mixture for three minutes.

  4. Pour into a buttered mold with a tight lid.

Steam and serve

  1. Set the mold in boiling water with a weight on top to prevent it from tipping.

  2. Boil for three hours.

  3. Serve hot with hard sauce or butter mixed with powdered sugar and nutmeg.

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. Fig + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together374 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Beef + milktop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,759 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

  5. Bread + beeftop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

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

What each ingredient does

Dried figs
Provide the main fruit flavour and a soft, sticky body throughout the pudding.
Bread crumbs
Soak up the milk to give the pudding its moist, tender body.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and help it set firm as it cooks.
Beef suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding rich and moist as it steams.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the savoury suet and salt.

The step that matters

Set the mold in boiling water with a weight on top. The mold must be fully surrounded by steadily boiling water so the pudding cooks evenly, and the weight keeps it from tipping and letting water into the lid.

Swap the fig

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figthe original
  3. Raisinfits about as well
  4. Pumpkinfits less well

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