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. Mix molasses, suet, spices, and chopped figs in a bowl.

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

  3. Beat the eggs until light, then add them along with the flour and mix thoroughly.

Steam

  1. Pour the mixture into one large mold or two small molds and steam for 5 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. 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

Molasses
Adds sweetness, moisture and a dark, rich flavor to the pudding.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding tender and moist as it steams.
Flour
Provides the starch and gluten structure that holds the pudding together.
Eggs
Bind the batter and help set the pudding's structure as it cooks.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic molasses to produce gas that lightens the pudding.
Figs
Contribute sweetness, moisture and chewy texture throughout the pudding.

The step that matters

Steaming for 5 hours. Steam must stay steady and the water must not run dry. Gentle, continuous steam cooks the pudding evenly and keeps it moist, while a drop in heat can leave it dense or underdone.

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