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Dessert

Fig Puddings

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Fig and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,026 recipes. Both carry methyl 2-methylbutyrate, which smells fruity, apple. The science ↓

Fig Puddings

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the batter

  1. Soak the bread crumbs in milk.

  2. Beat the eggs until light.

  3. Add sugar, salt, suet, flour, and figs.

  4. Mix in the soaked bread crumbs and baking powder.

  5. Beat the mixture for three minutes.

Steam and serve

  1. Pour into buttered molds with tight lids.

  2. Place the molds in boiling water, weighing down the lids to prevent them from tipping.

  3. Boil for three hours.

  4. Serve hot with hard sauce or butter and powdered sugar, and a teaspoon of nutmeg extract.

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

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

  2. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Beef + milktop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,759 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

  5. Bread + beeftop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure and richness as they set.
Bread crumbs
Soak up the milk to give the pudding a moist, tender body.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and rich as it steams.
Dried figs
Provide the main flavour and sweetness, plus body from their pulp.
Baking powder
Releases gas during cooking to lighten the pudding's texture.
Flour
Adds starch that helps set the batter into a firm, sliceable pudding.

The step that matters

Keep the lids secured in the boiling water. If the molds tip or lids lift, water can enter and the steam pressure needed to cook the pudding evenly is lost, leaving it soggy or unevenly cooked.

Swap the fig

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

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

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

Steamed 14Sauce 7English 3 See all 340 →

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