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Dessert

Fig Pudding

A steamed pudding made with figs, bread crumbs, suet, sugar, milk, eggs, cinnamon, and nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Fig Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Dip a pudding cloth in boiling water and dredge it with flour.

  2. Place the mixture in the cloth and tie it tightly, leaving room for it to swell.

  3. Steam for 3 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. Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Fig + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together614 recipes

    Shared aroma: cinnamyl acetate (sweet aromatic, cinnamon).

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

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

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

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

  5. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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 fruit flavor and texture.
Bread crumbs
Absorb liquid and give the pudding body and a soft, cakey structure.
Suet
Solid fat that melts during steaming, keeping the pudding moist and tender.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and set during steaming to give structure.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the pudding brown slightly and feel rich.
Sweet milk
Adds moisture and hydrates the crumbs, softening the texture.

The step that matters

Tying the cloth. The pudding expands as it steams, so it must be tied firmly enough to hold its shape but with room to swell. Tying it too tight can crack the cloth or leave the pudding dense.

Swap the fig

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, sugar, milk, egg, cinnamon, nutmeg. 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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