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Dessert

Fig Pudding

A baked pudding made with suet, flour, figs, egg, sugar, sour milk, and baking soda.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chop the suet and figs.

Mix the batter

  1. Mix the baking soda into the sour milk.

  2. Combine all ingredients in a bowl and mix well.

  3. Pour the mixture into a pudding mold.

Cook

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

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

  2. Flour + figtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,192 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

Flour
Provides the structure that holds the pudding together as it cooks.
Baking soda
Reacts with the sour milk to produce gas that lightens the pudding.
Sour milk
Its acidity activates the baking soda and adds moisture to the batter.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and rich in texture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps give the pudding a tender, moist crumb.
Egg
Binds the ingredients together and adds structure to the batter.

The step that matters

Mix the baking soda into the sour milk. Baking soda needs an acid to react and release gas. Mixing it into the sour milk first lets the reaction begin in the liquid, so the gas is trapped in the batter and lightens the pudding.

Swap the fig

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, egg, sugar, 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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