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Dessert

Fig Pudding

A steamed or boiled pudding made with figs, suet, bread crumbs, eggs, milk, sugar, baking powder, and sherry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Fig and sherry work together. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 85 recipes. Both carry ethyl isobutyrate, which smells fruity, ethereal. The science ↓

Fig Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the batter

  1. Chop the suet, figs, and bread crumbs together.

  2. In a bowl, mix the beaten eggs with sugar.

  3. Dissolve the baking powder in the milk and add it to the egg mixture along with the sherry.

  4. Combine all ingredients and pour into a buttered mold.

Cook and serve

  1. Boil for 2 hours.

  2. Serve hot with any kind of 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 + sherrytop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  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. Fig + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together374 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Egg + breadtop 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

Eggs
Bind the mixture and add structure as they set during cooking.
Bread crumbs
Absorb the liquid and give the pudding a soft, body-filled texture.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and tender as it cooks.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, helping the pudding rise and stay light.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps tenderize the crumb.

The step that matters

Boil for 2 hours. The pudding must cook long and steadily in a sealed mold so the eggs set and the batter becomes moist and cohesive; too little time leaves it wet and loose, and boiling too hard can make it crack or cook unevenly.

Swap the fig

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figthe original
  3. Applefits less well
  4. Apricotfits less well

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

More fig pudding recipes

Steamed 14Sauce 7English 3 See all 340 →

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