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Dessert

Fig Pudding

A sweet pudding made with figs, bread, suet, sugar, milk, egg, and nutmeg, boiled for hours.

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. Mix the grated bread and chopped suet in a bowl.

  2. Add the chopped figs, sugar, nutmeg, beaten egg, and milk to the mixture. Stir until well combined.

Cook and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a mold or pudding bag.

  2. Boil for 4 hours.

  3. Serve with sugar and butter sauce.

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

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

What each ingredient does

Dried figs
Provide the main sweetness, flavour and chewy body of the pudding.
Bread
Forms the bulk and soft structure that holds the pudding together.
Beef suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and rich as it cooks.
Egg
Binds the mixture so it holds its shape when cooked.
Milk
Moistens the bread so the mixture combines into a soft batter.
Moist sugar
Adds sweetness and a molasses-like depth of flavour.

The step that matters

Keep the pudding boiling gently for the full time. Long steaming or boiling cooks the mixture evenly through and sets it firm. If the water stops simmering or the mold is not sealed, the pudding can turn out soggy or waterlogged.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Cinnamonfits about as well
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Clovefits less well
  4. Gingerfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against fig, bread, sugar, beef, 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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