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Dessert

Fig Pudding

A steamed pudding made with suet, figs, flour, sugar, molasses, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, mix suet, chopped figs, flour, salt, sugar, molasses, baking soda, lemon juice, vanilla, and nutmeg.

  2. Thin the mixture with water until it reaches the consistency of cake batter.

Steam and serve

  1. Pour the batter into a buttered mold, filling it less than two-thirds full.

  2. Steam the pudding for two 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 + vanillatop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together324 recipes

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

  2. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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

Suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and rich as it steams.
Flour
Provides the structure that sets the batter into a firm, sliceable pudding.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic lemon juice and molasses to lighten the pudding.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, dark color and moisture to the pudding.
Chopped figs
Provide chewy texture and natural sweetness throughout the pudding.

The step that matters

Filling the mold less than two-thirds full. Batters containing leavening expand and rise as they steam. Leaving room in the mold prevents overflow and lets the pudding cook evenly through.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fig, flour, sugar, molasses, vanilla, nutmeg):

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Blueberryfits better
  3. Peachfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fig, flour, sugar, molasses, vanilla, 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.

More fig pudding recipes

Steamed 14Sauce 7English 3 See all 340 →

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