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Dessert

Fig Pudding

A steamed pudding made with figs, apples, suet, flour, bread crumbs, brown sugar, milk, eggs, and baking powder.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Fig and apple match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 238 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Fig Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the batter

  1. Boil the milk and pour it over the bread crumbs.

  2. Stir in the flour, minced suet, beaten eggs, chopped figs, chopped apples, brown sugar, and baking powder.

Steam

  1. Grease a mold and line it with brown sugar.

  2. Pour the mixture into the mold, filling it three-quarters full.

  3. Cover with buttered paper and steam for 2 to 2½ hours.

Serve

  1. Serve with white sauce, adding one or two chopped figs.

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 + appletop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together238 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Milk + appletop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,104 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

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

What each ingredient does

Figs
Provide the main fruit flavour and a soft, sweet, chewy texture throughout the pudding.
Bread crumbs
Soak up the hot milk and bind with the eggs to give the pudding body and moisture.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and help set the pudding structure as it steams.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the steamed pudding moist and rich in texture.
Flour
Gives the pudding its main structure so it holds together when steamed.
Baking powder
Releases gas during steaming to lighten the dense batter.

The step that matters

Filling the mold three-quarters full. Batters containing baking powder rise as they steam, and a mold filled too full can overflow or cook unevenly. Leaving room for expansion lets the pudding rise and set properly.

Swap the apple

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Datesfits better
  4. Applethe original

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

More fig pudding recipes

Steamed 14Sauce 7English 3 See all 340 →

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