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Dessert

Frozen Fig Pudding

A chilled dessert made from caramelized sugar, milk, egg yolks, and dried figs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and fig 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 ↓

Frozen Fig Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the caramel

  1. Melt 4 tablespoons of sugar over moderate heat until it resembles molasses.

  2. Add 1 teacup of water and boil until the sugar dissolves.

Make the custard base

  1. Combine 1 quart of milk, 14 ounces of sugar, and the yolks of 8 eggs in a basin.

  2. Strain the caramel into the milk mixture.

  3. Pour the mixture into a freezer.

  4. Chop 1 pound of dried figs into small pieces and add them to the mixture.

  5. Freeze the mixture until slightly firm.

Mold and freeze

  1. Pack the mixture into a mold.

  2. Surround the mold with pounded ice and coarse sea salt for about 2 hours, or until set.

  3. Turn the pudding out onto a cold dish.

  4. Serve.

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. Milk + figtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,026 recipes

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

  2. Sugar + figtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,241 recipes

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

  3. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Sugar and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Thicken the milk base and give the frozen pudding a rich, smooth body.
Sugar
Sweetens the pudding and, when melted to caramel, adds color and a toasted flavor.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that freezes into a creamy texture.
Dried figs
Add chewy texture and concentrated sweetness throughout the pudding.

The step that matters

Freezing the mixture until slightly firm. Partial freezing before molding lets the figs stay suspended rather than sinking, and the custard sets evenly when packed and frozen further.

Swap the fig

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, milk, 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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