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Dessert

Another Fig Pudding

A steamed pudding made with flour, suet, figs, breadcrumbs, sugar, egg, and optional milk or water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 ↓

Another Fig Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Measure the flour and add the salt in a bowl.

  2. Shred and chop the suet, then mix it with the flour.

Make and steam the pudding

  1. Add the chopped figs, breadcrumbs, egg, and a little milk or water to the mixture.

  2. Pour the mixture into a greased pudding dish.

  3. Cover the dish with paper and steam for 2 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. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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 main structure of the pudding as it steams.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and rich.
Egg
Binds the mixture and helps it set as it cooks.
Breadcrumbs
Soak up moisture and give the pudding a light, tender body.
Baking powder
Releases gas that helps the pudding rise and lighten.

The step that matters

Steaming the pudding. The dish must be covered and steamed for the full time so the heat cooks the batter through gently. Steam keeps the surface moist, so the pudding sets without drying or browning harshly.

Swap the fig

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, egg, 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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