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Dessert

Fig Pudding

A sweet pudding made with grated bread, figs, suet, sugar, milk, nutmeg, and egg, boiled for hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Fig and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 510 recipes. Both carry alpha-pinene, which smells pine, turpentine. The science ↓

Fig Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Mix grated bread and chopped suet in a bowl.

  2. Add chopped figs, sugar, nutmeg, and egg; mix well.

  3. Stir in milk until combined.

Cook and serve

  1. Pour mixture into a mold and boil for 4 hours.

  2. Serve with 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 + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together510 recipes

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Grated bread
Provides the bulk and body that holds the pudding together.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and rich as it cooks.
Figs
Add sweetness and a soft, jammy texture throughout the pudding.
Egg
Binds the ingredients so the pudding sets firm when cooked.
Milk
Moistens the bread so the mixture combines into a cohesive batter.

The step that matters

Pour mixture into a mold and boil for 4 hours. The pudding is cooked by steam and water heat over a long time. The mold must be sealed and the water kept at a steady boil, so the pudding cooks through without drying out or going watery.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Clovefits less well
  4. Allspicefits less well

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

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