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Dessert

Fig Pudding

A steamed pudding made with dried figs, suet, bread crumbs, flour, sugar, eggs, milk, salt, and nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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. 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 obtain ¼ lb of bread crumbs.

Make the mixture

  1. In a basin, 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; mix well.

  4. In a separate basin, beat the eggs and stir in the milk; add to the mixture and combine thoroughly.

Cook

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

  2. Transfer the mixture to the center of the cloth and tie it securely 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 + 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. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Dried figs
Provide the main fruit flavour and moist, chewy sweetness throughout the pudding.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and rich as it steams.
Bread crumbs
Give bulk and body, soaking up moisture to form a tender crumb.
Eggs
Bind the mixture together and help it set as it cooks.
Flour
Adds structure, helping the mixture hold together while steaming.
Moist sugar
Adds sweetness and a deeper, caramel-like flavour.

The step that matters

Tie the cloth securely. If the cloth is loose or the string slips, water can seep into the pudding and make it soggy, and the pudding can swell and burst its wrapping while it cooks.

Swap the fig

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

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

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

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