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Dessert

Fig Padding

A baked dessert made with figs, sugar, treacle, milk, flour, suet, eggs, 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 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 Padding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Butter a mold.

Mix and fill

  1. Mix figs, sugar, treacle, milk, flour, suet, eggs, and nutmeg together.

  2. Pour the mixture into the mold and tie it down with a floured cloth.

Cook and serve

  1. Boil for 4 hours.

  2. Serve with brandy or wine 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. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  4. Fig + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,192 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Milk and flour 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 body of the pudding, giving it structure as it sets.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding rich and moist during long cooking.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and help it set firm as it cooks.
Figs
Provide fruit flavor, sweetness and soft texture throughout the pudding.
Treacle
Adds sweetness and a deep, molasses-like flavor.

The step that matters

Tying the cloth down. The mixture needs room to expand and a cloth that is well floured, so it does not stick. A loose or wet cloth lets water into the pudding and leaves it heavy.

Swap the fig

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, milk, flour, egg, nutmeg. 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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