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Dessert

Fig Pudding

A chilled dessert made with cream, milk, sugar, figs, and curaçao.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 the figs

  1. Chop the figs finely.

  2. Pour the curaçao over the figs and let them stand until the cream is ready.

Make the base

  1. Mix the sugar and milk together.

  2. Add the cream after it has been slightly beaten.

Freeze and finish

  1. Freeze the mixture.

  2. When nearly done, add the figs.

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. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  3. Sugar + figtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,241 recipes

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

  4. Cream + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

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

  5. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

Milk and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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

Cream
Adds richness and fat, giving the frozen pudding a smooth, creamy texture.
Milk
Provides the liquid base that the sugar dissolves into and that freezes into the body of the pudding.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and softens the frozen texture by lowering the freezing point.
Dried figs
Add sweetness, chewy texture and fruity flavour to the pudding.
Curaçao
Adds orange aroma and flavour to the figs, and its alcohol keeps them softer when frozen.

The step that matters

When nearly done, add the figs.. Adding the figs only when the mixture is nearly frozen keeps them spread evenly instead of sinking to the bottom. Fully frozen figs would also turn hard and icy.

Swap the fig

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Strawberryfits better
  3. Figthe original
  4. Coconutfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, milk, 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.

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