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Dessert

Fig Pudding

A steamed pudding made with figs, bread crumbs, suet, sugar, milk, eggs, and spices.

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

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a large bowl, mix the bread crumbs, brown sugar, baking powder, suet, salt, figs, cinnamon, milk, nutmeg, and eggs in the order given.

  2. Pour the mixture into a pudding mold.

  3. Steam the pudding as you would a fruit pudding until fully cooked.

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. Fig + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together614 recipes

    Shared aroma: cinnamyl acetate (sweet aromatic, cinnamon).

  3. Fig + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together510 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  4. Fig + milktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,026 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

  5. Cinnamon + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

What each ingredient does

Bread crumbs
Absorb the milk and eggs to give the pudding its body.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and rich as it steams.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and help it set as it cooks.
Figs
Provide sweetness, chewy texture and the main fruit flavor.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and a molasses-like depth of flavor.
Baking powder
Releases gas that lightens the pudding as it heats.

The step that matters

Steam until fully cooked. Steaming cooks the eggs and starch gently and evenly. Stopping early leaves the centre wet and dense, so the pudding should be checked until it is set all the way through.

Swap the fig

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, sugar, cinnamon, milk, nutmeg, egg. 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.

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