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Dessert

Fig Pudding

A steamed pudding made with figs, sugar, treacle, milk, flour, suet, egg, and nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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

  1. In a bowl, mix the chopped figs, sugar, treacle, milk, flour, suet, egg, and nutmeg until well combined.

  2. Pour the mixture into a buttered mold.

  3. Boil the pudding in a pot of water for 4 to 5 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. Fig + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together510 recipes

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

  2. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Milk and flour 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
Provide the main body, sweetness and fruity flavor of the pudding.
Flour
Forms the structure that holds the pudding together as it steams.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and tender during long cooking.
Egg
Binds the mixture and helps it set firm as it cooks.
Treacle
Adds sweetness, depth and a dark color to the pudding.

The step that matters

Boil the pudding in a pot of water for 4 to 5 hours. The mold must stay covered and the water must keep simmering so the pudding steams evenly. If the water boils dry or drops too low, the pudding cooks unevenly and can turn dense or dry on the outside.

Swap the fig

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

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

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