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Dessert

Fig Pudding

A steamed pudding made with figs, sugar, treacle, milk, flour, suet, egg, and nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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

Make the batter

  1. Chop the figs very finely.

  2. Mix figs with coarse sugar, treacle, milk, flour, suet, egg, and nutmeg.

Boil the pudding

  1. Put the mixture into a buttered mold.

  2. Boil the pudding for 4 to 5 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 + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together510 recipes

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

  2. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  4. Fig + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,192 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

Figs
Provide sweetness, moisture and a soft, jammy texture throughout the pudding.
Flour
Forms the structure that holds the pudding together as it cooks.
Egg
Binds the mixture and helps it set into a firm, cohesive pudding.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding tender and moist as it cooks.
Coarse sugar
Adds sweetness and helps balance the richness of the suet and treacle.
Treacle
Adds sweetness, moisture and a deep, caramel-like flavour.

The step that matters

Boiling the pudding for 4 to 5 hours. Long, gentle cooking is what sets the flour and egg into a cooked, moist pudding. Cutting the time short can leave the centre gummy and underset.

Swap the fig

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, milk, flour, egg, 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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