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Dessert

Fig Pudding, No. 2

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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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, No. 2

Oven, in the book's wordsA rather slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, mix molasses, suet, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, figs, and beaten eggs.

  2. Dissolve baking soda in a little hot water and stir into the milk.

  3. Add the milk mixture to the bowl and stir well.

  4. Gradually mix in the flour until thoroughly combined.

Steam and serve

  1. Butter a pudding mold or high tin pail and pour in the batter.

  2. Cover tightly and place in boiling water, ensuring it stays boiling for three 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. 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. Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Cinnamon + flourtop 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

Molasses
Adds dark sweetness, moisture and a rich, deep flavor to the pudding.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and tender as it steams.
Eggs
Bind the batter and help give the pudding its set structure.
Baking soda
Reacts with the molasses's acidity to lighten the batter and help it rise.
All-purpose flour
Provides the starch and gluten that form the pudding's structure.
Figs
Add chewy texture and natural sweetness throughout the pudding.

The step that matters

Keep the water boiling for the full three hours. Steaming needs steady, continuous heat to cook the batter through evenly. If the water drops below boiling, the pudding cooks slowly and can turn out dense or undercooked, so the pot must be topped up with boiling water as needed.

Swap the fig

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

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

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