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Dessert

Fig Pudding

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Fig and apple match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 238 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Fig Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chop the figs, suet, and apples.

Make and cook the pudding

  1. Mix them with the flour, sugar, breadcrumbs, eggs, treacle, nutmeg, and enough milk to combine.

  2. Pour the mixture into a mold.

  3. Steam for 3 hours.

Serve

  1. Serve with sweet sauce, adding two figs to the 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 + appletop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together238 recipes

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

  2. Fig + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together510 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  5. Apple + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,104 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

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 help it set as it steams.
Breadcrumbs
Add body and soak up moisture to give the pudding a soft, cohesive crumb.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and rich as it steams.
Flour
Provides structure so the pudding holds its shape when cooked.
Figs
Contribute sweetness, body and fruity flavour throughout the pudding.

Swap the apple

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Blueberryfits better
  4. Applethe original

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

More fig pudding recipes

Steamed 14Sauce 7English 3 See all 340 →

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