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Dessert

Fig Pudding

A pudding made from figs, breadcrumbs, suet, sugar, salt, eggs, and milk, boiled for hours.

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 batter

  1. Mix figs, breadcrumbs, suet, sugar, and salt in a bowl.

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

  3. Pour the mixture into a mold.

Cook and serve

  1. Boil in a pan of water for 4 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 sweetness, flavour and moist, soft body of the pudding.
Breadcrumbs
Absorb moisture and give the pudding a light, crumbly structure.
Beef suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and rich as it steams.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and help it set firm as it cooks.
Milk
Adds moisture that softens the breadcrumbs and loosens the batter.

The step that matters

Boil in a pan of water for 4 hours. The mold must stay submerged and the water must keep simmering for the full time. If the water boils low or dries out, the pudding cooks unevenly and can turn dense or dry at the edges.

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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