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Dessert

Fig Pudding

A steamed pudding made with figs, bread crumbs, flour, suet, brown sugar, and rum.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Fig and rum work together. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 33 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Fig Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the pudding

  1. Combine chopped figs, bread crumbs, flour, suet, brown sugar, and rum in a bowl, and mix well until all ingredients are combined.

  2. Place the mixture in a cloth and tie securely.

Cook

  1. Boil in water for 3 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 + rumtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together33 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Sugar + rumtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,908 recipes

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

  4. Fig + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,192 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

What each ingredient does

Figs
Provide the main sweet fruit flavour and moist body of the pudding.
Bread crumbs
Absorb liquid and add bulk, helping the pudding hold together.
Flour
Adds structure, helping the mixture bind as it cooks.
Suet
Adds fat, giving richness and a moist, tender texture.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and a caramel-like depth of flavour.
Rum
Adds aroma and flavour while moistening the mixture.

The step that matters

Tie the cloth securely. If the cloth is loose or the seal leaks, water can enter during the long boil and make the pudding soggy and waterlogged. A firmly tied cloth keeps the pudding compact and moist while it steams.

Swap the fig

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

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

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