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Dessert

Dried Fruit Pudding

A steamed pudding made with bread crumbs, brown sugar, suet, dried cherries and peaches, orange rind, spices, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and mace are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,557 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Dried Fruit Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fruit

  1. Soak the dried fruit overnight in just enough water to cover it.

  2. In the morning, remove the fruit from the water, drain it, and partially dry it with a towel.

Make the pudding

  1. Beat the eggs and mix in the grated rind and juice of the orange.

  2. Combine the egg mixture with the other ingredients and mix well.

  3. Tie the pudding in a cloth, leaving little room for it to swell.

Steam and serve

  1. Steam the pudding for 3 hours.

  2. When done, briefly plunge it in cold water before serving.

  3. Serve with a rich 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. Nutmeg + macetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Peach + orangetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together385 recipes

    Shared aroma: pinene (pine, turpentine).

  3. Nutmeg + orangetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,746 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Peach + nutmegtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together342 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  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 body that hold the pudding together.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and rich as it steams.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and help it set firm when steamed.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and a deeper, molasses-like flavour.
Dried cherries
Add concentrated fruit sweetness and chewy texture.
Dried peaches
Add concentrated fruit sweetness and chewy texture.

The step that matters

Tie the pudding with room to swell. The pudding rises and expands as it steams. Leaving too little room in the cloth can cause it to burst or become compressed and dense.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, sugar, peach, nutmeg, orange, egg):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Allspicefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, sugar, peach, nutmeg, orange, 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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