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Dessert

Fig Pudding

A baked pudding made with figs, bread, sugar, butter, eggs, and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Fig Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

  1. Chop the figs into small pieces.

  2. Cream the butter and then mix in the chopped figs.

  3. Add the grated bread, powdered sugar, eggs, and milk; mix well.

Bake and serve

  1. Grease a mold and sprinkle it with breadcrumbs.

  2. Pour the mixture into the mold, cover it tightly, and boil 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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Figs
Provide the main fruit flavor and sweetness, and moist pieces throughout the pudding.
Grated bread
Soaks up milk and egg to give the pudding a soft, set body.
Butter
Adds richness and a tender texture to the batter.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and help it set as it cooks.
Milk
Moistens the bread and loosens the batter so it cooks evenly.

The step that matters

Cover the mold tightly and boil for 3 hours. A tight cover traps steam so the pudding cooks gently and stays moist. If the lid is loose or the water boils dry, the pudding can dry out or cook unevenly.

Swap the fig

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figthe original
  3. Peachfits less well
  4. Applefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, sugar, butter, 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.

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