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Dessert

Fig Pudding

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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

Prepare

  1. Chop the figs and suet together.

  2. In a bowl, combine the chopped figs, suet, bread crumbs, brown sugar, milk, and egg. Mix well.

Cook and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a double boiler.

  2. Boil for 4 hours.

  3. Serve with lemon 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 + milktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,026 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

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

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Egg
Binds the mixture and helps it set as it cooks.
Bread crumbs
Absorb the milk and give the pudding its body.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding rich and moist.
Figs
Add sweetness, moisture, and fruity flavor.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and a deeper, molasses-like flavor.
Milk
Moistens the bread crumbs and helps form a soft texture.

The step that matters

Boil for 4 hours. A long, steady boil cooks the egg and crumb mixture through gently. Heat that is too fierce can make the pudding coarse, and water that runs low can scorch it or leave it undercooked.

Swap the fig

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

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

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