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Dessert

Fig Pudding

A steamed pudding made with figs, suet, breadcrumbs, eggs, and sugar, served warm with a butter‑sugar‑vanilla sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Fig and vanilla match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 324 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Fig Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the pudding

  1. In a large bowl, mix the chopped figs, suet, bread crumbs, eggs, sugar, salt, and baking powder until well combined.

  2. Transfer the mixture to a pudding mold and steam for 2 hours.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. For the sauce, cream the butter in a bowl, then gradually add the powdered sugar and vanilla extract, mixing until smooth.

  2. Fold in the whipped cream gently.

  3. Serve the pudding warm with the sauce drizzled on top.

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 + vanillatop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together324 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  2. Vanilla + strawberrytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,385 recipes

    Shared aroma: p-vinylguaiacol (spicy, fruity).

  3. Fig + strawberrytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together42 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

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

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

  5. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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 flavour and moist, sweet body to the pudding.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding rich and moist as it steams.
Bread crumbs
Give the pudding bulk and a soft, absorbent crumb to hold the mixture together.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and help it set as it cooks.
Baking powder
Releases gas during cooking to lighten the pudding's texture.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, creamy body to the sauce.

The step that matters

Steaming the pudding. Steaming must stay gently and steadily at a simmer with enough water, because the mixture cooks slowly and evenly. Uneven or lost steam can leave the pudding dense or undercooked in the centre.

Swap the strawberry

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

  1. Apricotfits about as well
  2. Peachfits about as well
  3. Bananafits about as well
  4. Strawberrythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fig, bread, egg, sugar, butter, vanilla, cream. 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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