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Dessert

Fig Pudding

A steamed pudding made with figs, suet, brown sugar, milk, flour, baking powder, and egg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and fig 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 suet and figs together.

Mix the batter

  1. Mix in the brown sugar, sweet milk, flour, and baking powder.

  2. Add the egg last and combine well.

Steam and serve

  1. Steam for 4 hours.

  2. Serve with 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. Milk + figtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,026 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 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 and moisture, and a soft, jammy texture through the pudding.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding rich, moist and tender as it steams.
Flour
Forms the main structure of the pudding as its starches set during steaming.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, helping the pudding rise and become light.
Egg
Binds the batter together and helps it set firm and hold its shape.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and a deeper, molasses-like flavour, along with some moisture.

The step that matters

Steaming for 4 hours. A long, gentle steam cooks the dense batter evenly and keeps it moist. If the water boils dry or the steam is uneven, the pudding can turn dry or underdone in places.

Swap the fig

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

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

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

More fig pudding recipes

Steamed 14Sauce 7English 3 See all 340 →

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