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Dessert

Fig Pudding

A steamed pudding made with figs, bread crumbs, suet, eggs, milk, sugar, and nutmeg, served with a butter‑flour sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Fig Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the pudding

  1. In a bowl, combine chopped figs, bread crumbs, chopped suet, beaten eggs, milk, fine sugar, and nutmeg. Mix well and pour the mixture into a greased pudding mold.

  2. Steam the pudding for 2 hours.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. For the sauce, melt butter in a saucepan, add flour, and stir until smooth. Gradually add hot water and powdered sugar, stirring until thickened.

  2. Season the sauce with lemon or wine before serving.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

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

  3. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  4. Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Fig + milktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,026 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Figs
Provide the main fruit flavor and body, and their sweetness fills the pudding.
Bread crumbs
Absorb liquid and give the pudding a soft, light crumb structure.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and rich as it steams.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and help it set firmly during steaming.
Flour
Thickens the butter base of the sauce so it becomes smooth and coated.

The step that matters

Stirring the sauce while adding the hot water. Adding liquid to a flour and butter roux gradually while stirring prevents lumps, because the starch disperses evenly before it thickens.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Cinnamonfits about as well
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Capersfits less well
  4. Clovefits less well

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