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Dessert

Christmas Pudding

A steamed pudding made with bread crumbs, currants, raisins, suet, spices, eggs, and molasses, served with a sweet sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Allspice and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,536 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Christmas 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.

Make the pudding

  1. In a large bowl, combine bread crumbs, currants, raisins, brown sugar, beef suet, flour, citron, allspice, cinnamon, cloves, salt, baking powder, nutmeg, eggs, and molasses.

  2. Mix well until all ingredients are fully combined.

  3. Transfer the mixture into a pudding cloth or mold.

Cook and make the sauce

  1. Cook in boiling water for 6-8 hours, ensuring the water remains boiling.

  2. For the sauce, mix together sugar, butter, egg yolks, water or brandy, cream or hot milk, and a pinch of salt.

  3. Beat until well combined and cook gently until thickened, but do not boil.

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. Allspice + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Raisin + flourtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Raisin + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  4. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Currant + allspicetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,359 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl benzoate (fruity, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the dense fruit and crumb mixture and help it hold its shape when steamed.
Beef suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and rich as it cooks.
Bread crumbs
Soak up liquid and give the pudding a light, tender body.
Flour
Provides structure so the pudding holds together after steaming.
Baking powder
Releases gas during cooking to lighten the pudding.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, dark colour and a deep, caramel-like flavour.

The step that matters

Keep the water boiling for the full cooking time. Steaming a pudding for hours needs steady, vigorous heat. If the water drops below boiling, the pudding cooks unevenly and can turn heavy and soggy, so the pot needs topping up with boiling water as it evaporates.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, raisin, sugar, beef, flour, allspice, cinnamon):

  1. Figfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Orangefits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, raisin, sugar, beef, flour, allspice, cinnamon. 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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