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Suet Steamed Pudding

A steamed pudding made with suet, molasses, raisins, flour, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Raisin and flour match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,075 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Suet Steamed Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a large bowl, combine the minced suet and molasses.

  2. Add the cream of tartar, baking soda (or 3 teaspoons baking powder), sweet milk, salt, and cinnamon.

  3. Stir in the raisins and flour until well mixed.

Steam

  1. Pour the mixture into a covered pail.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Cinnamon + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

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

  3. Cinnamon + flourtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Molasses + cinnamontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,928 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and rich as it cooks.
Flour
Provides the structure that sets the pudding as it steams.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic molasses and cream of tartar to lift the batter.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, dark color, and moisture to the pudding.
Cream of tartar
Acts as an acid that reacts with baking soda to help the pudding rise.

The step that matters

Keep the pail covered while steaming. Covering the pail traps steam so the pudding cooks gently and stays moist. If steam escapes, the pudding can dry out and cook unevenly.

“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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