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Dessert

Fig Pudding

A steamed pudding made with soda crackers, figs, suet, milk, sugar, eggs, brandy, baking soda, and nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Fig and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 510 recipes. Both carry alpha-pinene, which smells pine, turpentine. The science ↓

Fig Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Dissolve the baking soda in the milk.

  2. Mix all ingredients in the order given.

Steam and serve

  1. Steam the mixture for four hours.

  2. Serve with a wine or hard 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. Fig + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together510 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Fig + brandytop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together222 recipes

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

  4. Milk + nutmegtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,685 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Brandy + nutmegtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,311 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the batter and set into a tender structure as they cook.
Figs
Add sweetness, moisture and a chewy texture to the pudding.
Suet
Adds fat that melts into the batter, keeping the pudding moist and rich.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps keep the pudding moist.
Milk
Provides the liquid that softens the crackers and moistens the batter.

The step that matters

Steam for the full four hours. Gentle, steady steam cooks the eggs and sets the batter evenly while the suet melts through it. Cutting the steaming short leaves the pudding dense and underdone in the centre.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Clovefits less well
  4. Allspicefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, fig, brandy, 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.

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