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Dessert

Fig Pudding

A boiled pudding made from dried figs, suet, bread crumbs, flour, sugar, eggs, milk, and nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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

Prepare

  1. Boil a large saucepan of water.

  2. Chop the suet finely after removing the skin.

  3. Finely chop the dried figs.

  4. Rub the bread through a sieve to get ½ cup of bread crumbs.

Make the mixture

  1. In a bowl, combine the flour, chopped suet, and salt.

  2. Rub the suet into the flour until no lumps remain.

  3. Add the bread crumbs, figs, moist sugar, and grated nutmeg, and mix well.

  4. In a bowl, beat the eggs and add the milk, then stir into the mixture.

Cook

  1. Lay a pudding cloth in a basin and sprinkle with flour.

  2. Transfer the mixture to the center of the cloth, tie it up with string.

  3. Place the pudding in the boiling water and cook for about three and a half 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. 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. Fig + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,192 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Dried figs
Adds sweetness, moisture and a chewy texture to the pudding.
Moist sugar
Adds sweetness and moisture, and helps the pudding brown slightly.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and tender.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and help it set as it cooks.
Flour
Provides structure so the pudding holds its shape.
Bread crumbs
Add bulk and absorb moisture, giving a softer crumb.

The step that matters

Place the pudding in the boiling water and cook for about three and a half hours. The water must stay at a steady boil for the whole long cook. Steady heat sets the eggs and flour gently and cooks the suet through, while a drop in temperature leaves the pudding heavy and under-set.

Swap the fig

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Figthe original
  4. Datesfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, bread, flour, 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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