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Dessert

Fig Pudding

A steamed pudding made with eggs, figs, breadcrumbs, sugar, nuts, citron, vanilla, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Fig and vanilla match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 324 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Fig Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Beat the eggs in a large bowl without separating the yolks and whites.

  2. Mix in the ground figs, bread crumbs, sugar, ground nuts, chopped citron, vanilla, and salt.

Steam and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a pudding dish.

  2. Steam the pudding for four 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.

  1. Fig + vanillatop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together324 recipes

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

  2. Nuts + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together638 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  3. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Fig + nutstop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together154 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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

Eggs
Bind the mixture and add lift and structure as the pudding sets.
Bread crumbs
Absorb liquid and give the pudding a soft, sponge-like body.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps tenderize the texture.
Ground figs
Add moisture, sweetness and the pudding's main flavor.
Ground nuts
Add fat and a rich, slightly crunchy texture.

The step that matters

Steam the pudding for four hours. Gentle, sustained steam cooks the eggs and crumbs through evenly without drying the pudding. Steaming too hard or letting the water boil dry can leave the pudding uneven or scorched at the base.

Swap the nuts

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Chestnutfits better
  3. Pecansfits better
  4. Nutsthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, fig, bread, sugar, vanilla. 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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