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Dessert

Fig Pudding

A steamed pudding made with figs, suet, bread, brown sugar, eggs, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Fig and bread work together. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 374 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Fig Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Combine figs, suet, bread, brown sugar, eggs, and salt in a bowl.

  2. Mix well until all ingredients are combined.

  3. Transfer the mixture to a pudding mold.

Steam and serve

  1. Steam the pudding for 3 hours.

  2. Serve with foam 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. Fig + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together374 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

  3. Fig + sugartop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,241 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  4. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Fig + eggtop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,406 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

What each ingredient does

Figs
Provide sweetness, moisture, and the main fruity flavor and texture.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and tender as it cooks.
Bread
Gives body and structure, soaking up moisture to hold the mixture together.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and a molasses-like depth of flavor.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and set as they cook, giving the pudding structure.

The step that matters

Steam the pudding for 3 hours. Steaming cooks the pudding gently with moist heat, so it heats through evenly and stays tender. Cooking too hard or too fast can make the texture dense or uneven, so keep the steam steady for the full time.

Swap the fig

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, 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.

More fig pudding recipes

Steamed 14Sauce 7English 3 See all 340 →

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