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Dessert

Fig Pudding

A steamed pudding made with figs, suet, flour, and sweet milk, topped with a plain pudding sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Fig and milk 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

Make the fig filling

  1. Cook the figs and sugar with enough water to prevent burning until it forms a jelly.

Make the dough

  1. In a bowl, mix the baking powder, salt, suet, and flour.

  2. Add sweet milk gradually to form a soft dough.

  3. Roll out the dough.

Assemble and steam

  1. Cover it with the jellied figs.

  2. Roll it up like a jelly cake.

  3. Steam the pudding for three hours.

Serve

  1. Serve with a plain pudding 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 + milktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,026 recipes

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

  2. Fig + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,192 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

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

Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

Figs
Cook down with sugar into a jelly that forms the sweet filling.
Flour
Forms the structure of the dough that holds the roll together.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and tender as it steams.
Baking powder
Releases gas that helps the dough rise and lighten while steaming.
Sugar
Sweetens the figs and helps them thicken into a jelly.

The step that matters

Adding the sweet milk gradually. Flour absorbs liquid at its own pace, so adding milk slowly lets you reach a soft dough without making it sticky or stiff. Too much liquid at once can make the roll heavy.

Swap the fig

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, flour, milk. 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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