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Dessert

Fig Pudding

A baked pudding made with figs, bread crumbs, suet, sugar, eggs, milk, and nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Fig and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 510 recipes. Both carry alpha-pinene, which smells pine, turpentine. The science ↓

Fig Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chop the figs and suet very fine.

  2. Mix all ingredients together well.

Cook and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a mold.

  2. Boil for 4 hours.

  3. Serve with sweet sauce.

  4. For leftovers, fry in slices the next day and sprinkle with powdered sugar.

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

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  4. Bread + figtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together374 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Bread crumbs
Provides the bulk and structure that holds the pudding together.
Figs
Add sweetness, moisture and a soft, chewy texture.
Suet
Adds fat that melts during cooking, keeping the pudding moist and tender.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and set during cooking to give it firmness.
Moist sugar
Adds sweetness and moisture, and deepens the flavor.
Milk
Moistens the crumbs so the mixture holds together and cooks evenly.

The step that matters

Boil for 4 hours. Long, gentle cooking in liquid heat sets the eggs and softens the crumbs slowly. This firms the pudding without drying it, while the suet melts into moisture.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Clovefits less well
  4. Allspicefits less well

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

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