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Dessert

Fig Pudding

A steamed pudding made with figs, breadcrumbs, flour, suet, raisins, apples, milk, eggs, sugar, nutmeg, and cinnamon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and raisin match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,075 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Fig Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chop the figs and soak them in the milk in a warm place until soft.

  2. In a bowl, combine breadcrumbs, flour, chopped suet, raisins, sugar, chopped apple, nutmeg, and cinnamon.

Mix and steam

  1. Beat the eggs and add them to the mixture, then pour in the milk and figs. Mix everything very well.

  2. Pour the mixture into a greased mold and steam for 3 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. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Apple + figtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together238 recipes

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

  3. Raisin + nutmegtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).

  4. Nutmeg + figtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together510 recipes

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

  5. Raisin + figtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together737 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Self-raising flour
Provides the structure and lift that give the pudding its body as it cooks.
Suet
Adds richness and fat that keeps the steamed pudding moist and tender.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and help set the pudding as it steams.
Breadcrumbs
Absorb liquid and add softness to the crumb.
Figs
Add sweetness, moisture and a soft, jammy texture.

The step that matters

Soak the figs until soft. Figs that stay firm will not soften during steaming and can leave hard, chewy bits in the pudding. Soaking them in warm milk first hydrates the fruit so it blends evenly into the batter.

Swap the apple

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Datesfits about as well
  3. Peachfits about as well
  4. Applethe original

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

Steamed 14Sauce 7English 3 See all 340 →

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