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Dessert

Fig Pudding

A boiled pudding made with grated bread, figs, suet, sugar, milk, nutmeg, and egg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Fig and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 510 recipes. Both carry alpha-pinene, which smells pine, turpentine. The science ↓

Fig Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chop figs and suet very fine, separately.

  2. Mix grated bread and suet together.

Make the pudding

  1. Add chopped figs, sugar, nutmeg, and one well beaten egg.

  2. Finally, stir in the milk.

  3. Pour the mixture into a mold and boil for four hours.

Serve

  1. Serve with sweet 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 + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together510 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  4. Bread + figtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together374 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Grated bread
Forms the body of the pudding and soaks up the milk for a soft, moist crumb.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding rich and moist as it steams.
Figs
Provide sweetness, fruity flavour and moisture through the pudding.
Moist sugar
Adds sweetness and a soft, molasses-like depth of flavour.
Egg
Binds the mixture so it holds together when cooked.
Milk
Moistens the dry ingredients so they form a soft batter.

The step that matters

Pour the mixture into a mold and boil for four hours. The pudding must be sealed and boiled steadily for the full time so the mixture cooks through gently and sets into a firm, moist pudding. Boiling too hard or too briefly leaves it uneven or dense.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Clovefits less well
  4. Allspicefits less well

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