Skip to main content
Dessert

Fig Pudding

A steamed pudding made with figs, bread crumbs, suet, eggs, brown sugar, and sweet milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 batter

  1. Soak the bread crumbs in sweet milk until soft.

  2. In a bowl, mix the soaked bread crumbs with brown sugar, egg yolks, and baking soda.

  3. Add the chopped suet and floured figs to the mixture.

  4. Beat the egg whites until stiff and fold them into the mixture.

Steam and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a mold and steam for 3 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. Milk + figtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,026 recipes

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

  2. Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  3. Bread + figtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together374 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Egg yolks bind the batter and beaten whites lighten it as they fold in.
Bread crumbs
Soaked in milk, they absorb liquid and give the pudding a soft, moist body.
Suet
Melts during steaming, adding richness and moisture to the pudding.
Baking soda
Reacts with the sweet ingredients and helps the pudding rise and turn tender.
Figs
Provide chewy pieces and natural sweetness throughout the pudding.

The step that matters

Folding in the beaten egg whites. Stiff whites hold air that lightens the batter. Overmixing or stirring vigorously knocks that air out, leaving a dense pudding after steaming.

Swap the fig

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

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

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

You might also like

Bread PuddingBread Pudding153 recipesSoft Ginger BreadSoft Ginger Bread85 recipesOrange Potato BreadOrange Potato Bread80 recipesBrown Bread PuddingBrown Bread Pudding47 recipes