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Dessert

Fig Pudding

A steamed pudding made with bread crumbs, eggs, figs, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and fig work together. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 374 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Fig Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the pudding

  1. In a bowl, combine the bread crumbs, beaten eggs, chopped figs, and sugar. Mix well until all ingredients are combined.

  2. Transfer the mixture to a greased pudding mold.

  3. Steam the pudding for 3 hours.

Serve

  1. Serve with your choice 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. Bread + figtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together374 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  3. Fig + sugartop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,241 recipes

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

  4. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Egg + figtop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,406 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Bread crumbs
Provide the bulk and body that hold the pudding together.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and set as it steams, giving the pudding structure.
Figs
Add moisture, chewy texture and their sweet, fruity flavour.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps balance the flavour of the figs.

The step that matters

Steam the pudding for 3 hours. Steam must stay steady and the mold must be sealed so the water does not get in. Gentle, even heat lets the eggs set into a moist, tender pudding rather than a dry or watery one.

Swap the fig

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

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

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