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Dessert

Fig Pudding

A steamed dessert made with figs, bread crumbs, suet, milk, flour, sugar, 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 Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the figs

  1. In a saucepan, combine the chopped figs and milk. Stew for 15 minutes.

Mix the batter

  1. In a bowl, mix the bread crumbs, flour, suet, sugar, and nutmeg.

  2. Add the stewed figs and milk to the dry mixture, then stir in the beaten eggs.

Steam and serve

  1. Butter a basin or mold and pour the mixture in.

  2. Place the basin in a saucepan with boiling water and steam for 1.5 hours.

  3. Serve with sweet 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. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  5. Bread + figtop 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

Figs
Provide the main flavor and sweetness, and soften into the pudding as they stew.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and rich during steaming.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and help it set as it cooks.
Bread crumbs
Absorb the milk and give the pudding body and structure.
Flour
Adds structure, helping the pudding hold together when steamed.

The step that matters

Keep the steaming water at a gentle boil. Steaming cooks the pudding evenly and gently. If the water boils down and the saucepan runs dry, the pudding can scorch or cook unevenly, so the water level should be checked during the long steam.

Swap the fig

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

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

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

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