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Dessert

Fig Pudding

A steamed pudding made with figs, nutmeg, egg, sweet milk, suet, and bread crumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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

Prepare

  1. Chop the suet finely.

  2. Mix the suet with the bread crumbs thoroughly.

Make and cook the pudding

  1. Add the figs, nutmeg, beaten egg, and sweet milk in the order given.

  2. Steam the mixture for four hours.

Serve

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  4. Fig + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together374 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Figs
Provide the main body, sweetness and fruity flavour of the pudding.
Egg
Binds the mixture together and helps it set as it cooks.
Suet
Adds richness and fat, keeping the pudding moist and tender.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and give the pudding body and structure.
Sweet milk
Adds moisture and helps bind the crumbs into a soft batter.

The step that matters

Add the figs, nutmeg, beaten egg, and sweet milk in the order given. Mixing the dry suet and crumbs thoroughly first lets them absorb the liquids evenly, so the pudding steams to a uniform texture rather than lumpy or dense.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Nutmegthe original
  2. Cinnamonfits about as well
  3. Clovefits less well
  4. Thymefits less well

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

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Steamed 14Sauce 7English 3 See all 340 →

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