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Dessert

Fig Pudding

A sweet pudding made with figs, breadcrumbs, suet, sugar, eggs, milk, and salt.

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 pudding

  1. Mix the pounded figs, breadcrumbs, minced beef suet, pounded sugar, and salt in a bowl.

  2. Add the beaten eggs and milk, and mix well.

  3. Pour the mixture into a mold.

Boil and serve

  1. Boil in a pan of water for four hours.

  2. Serve with rum 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. Beef + milktop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,759 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

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

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

  4. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Sugar and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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 flavour and sweetness, and moisture within the pudding.
Breadcrumbs
Absorb liquid and give the pudding its body and soft crumb.
Beef suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and rich as it cooks.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and help it set firm when cooked.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps balance the flavour of the figs.

The step that matters

Boil in a pan of water for four hours. Steaming or boiling gently in water heats the pudding evenly and slowly, so the eggs set and the suet melts into the crumb without the pudding breaking apart. Water that boils too hard can crack the mold or make the texture coarse, so the water should stay at a steady simmer and be topped up as it evaporates.

Swap the fig

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, sugar, egg, 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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