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Dessert

Fig Pudding

A steamed pudding made with figs, suet, bread crumbs, flour, sugar, sultanas, almonds, mixed peel, cherries, lemon rind, eggs, cream, and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Fig and almond match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 519 recipes. Both carry alpha-pinene, which smells pine, turpentine. The science ↓

Fig Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chop the suet, figs, mixed peel, cherries, and almonds.

  2. Mix all the dry ingredients together in a bowl.

Bind and steam

  1. Bind the mixture with the beaten eggs, cream, and enough milk to achieve a dropping consistency.

  2. Steam in a greased mold for four hours.

Serve

  1. Turn out and serve with custard, mousseline, or wine 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 + almondtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together519 recipes

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

  2. Flour + almondtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  4. Almond + lemontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the mixture and set the pudding as they cook.
Bread crumbs
Provide the body that holds the dried fruit and suet together.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and rich as it steams.
Figs
Add natural sweetness and a soft, chewy texture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps give the pudding a tender crumb.

The step that matters

Binding to a dropping consistency. If the batter is too stiff, the pudding turns dense and dry; too loose, and it cannot hold its shape. Add milk gradually, judging by whether the mixture drops easily from a spoon. Steaming gently keeps the eggs setting evenly without boiling the pudding apart.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, flour, sugar, fig, almond, egg, cream):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Datesfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, flour, sugar, fig, almond, egg, cream. 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

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