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Dessert

Fig Pudding

A steamed or baked pudding made with figs, bread crumbs, sweet milk, eggs, and sweet cream or butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 the bread crumbs and cream together.

  2. Add the chopped figs to the mixture.

  3. Stir in the sweet milk and eggs.

Cook and serve

  1. Steam or bake the mixture until cooked through.

  2. Serve with or without 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. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  3. Fig + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together374 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  5. Milk + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

What each ingredient does

Bread crumbs
Provide the bulk and absorb the liquid to form a soft body.
Figs
Add sweetness, flavor, and moisture to the pudding.
Eggs
Bind the pudding and set it as it cooks through.
Sweet milk
Moistens the bread crumbs so they soften into a batter.
Sweet cream or butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender texture.

The step that matters

Cooking until cooked through. The eggs set with heat, so an undercooked pudding stays wet and loose in the centre. Cooking too long can dry it out and make it firm and crumbly.

Swap the fig

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figthe original
  3. Raspberryfits about as well
  4. Strawberryfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, milk, egg, cream. 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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