Skip to main content
Dessert

Fig Pudding

A steamed pudding made with figs, molasses, suet, milk, flour, eggs, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Fig Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, mix together the molasses, suet, spices, and chopped figs.

  2. Dissolve the baking soda in 1 tablespoon of hot water and mix it with the milk; add to the other ingredients.

  3. Beat the eggs until light and stir them into the mixture.

  4. Add the flour and beat thoroughly until well combined.

Steam and serve

  1. Butter two small or one large brown‑bread mold and pour the mixture into the mold.

  2. Steam for 5 hours.

  3. Serve with cream 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. Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Cinnamon + figtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together614 recipes

    Shared aroma: cinnamyl acetate (sweet aromatic, cinnamon).

  3. Nutmeg + figtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together510 recipes

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

  4. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 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

Flour
Provides the main structure that holds the pudding together as it steams.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure and richness as they set.
Baking soda
Reacts with the molasses's acidity to produce gas that lightens the pudding.
Black molasses
Adds moisture, dark color, and a deep sweetness with a slight acidity.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and tender during long steaming.
Figs
Add natural sweetness, moisture, and chewy fruit texture throughout the pudding.

The step that matters

Dissolving the baking soda before mixing. Baking soda needs to be fully dissolved in the hot water and blended evenly into the batter so it reacts uniformly with the molasses. Unevenly mixed soda can leave dense spots or bitter pockets in the finished pudding.

Swap the fig

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against molasses, milk, flour, egg, cinnamon, 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.

More fig pudding recipes

Steamed 14Sauce 7English 3 See all 340 →

You might also like

Molasses CookiesMolasses Cookies96 recipesMolasses CakeMolasses Cake90 recipesCinnamon RollsCinnamon Rolls71 recipesCinnamon CakeCinnamon Cake42 recipes