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Dessert

Fig Pudding. — No . 3.

A baked pudding made from suet, flour, figs, brown sugar, and baking powder, cooked for three hours without eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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. — No . 3.

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Mix the baking powder with the flour.

  2. Chop the suet very fine.

  3. Cut the figs into small pieces.

Mix and boil

  1. Add the sugar and mix all the dry ingredients well together.

  2. Add enough milk or water to moisten the mixture.

  3. Boil in a basin or mold for three 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 + milktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,026 recipes

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

  2. Flour + figtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,192 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

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

Flour and milk 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

Flour
Forms the bulk and structure that holds the pudding together as it cooks.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and gives it a tender texture.
Figs
Provide chewy texture and natural sweetness throughout the pudding.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and a deeper, caramel-like flavor to the pudding.
Baking powder
Releases gas as it heats, helping the pudding rise and become light.

The step that matters

Moistening the mixture. Add the milk or water gradually. Too little leaves the dry ingredients crumbly and dense, while too much makes the pudding heavy and soggy once it steams.

Swap the fig

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, sugar, 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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