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Dessert

Soyeks New Christmas Pudding

A traditional Christmas pudding made with raisins, sultanas, currants, suet, sugar, flour, bread crumbs, almonds, nutmeg, citron, lemon peel, eggs, brandy, and milk, steamed overnight.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 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 ↓

Soyeks New Christmas Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and mix

  1. Prepare all ingredients separately before mixing the pudding.

  2. In a basin, combine the raisins, sultanas, currants, suet, sugar, flour, bread crumbs, almonds, nutmeg, citron, and lemon peel.

  3. Break the eggs over the mixture, then add the brandy.

  4. Mix well and cover until the next morning.

  5. The next day, add the milk and stir the pudding well.

Boil and serve

  1. Butter a cloth lightly, sprinkle with flour, and place it in a basin.

  2. Pour the pudding mixture into the cloth and tie it securely but not too tight.

  3. Place the cloth in a pot with ½ gallon of boiling water, adding more water as needed to maintain the level.

  4. Simmer for 2 hours and 30 minutes.

  5. Turn out of the cloth and serve on a hot dish.

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. Raisin + almondtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,781 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  3. Almond + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,115 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Flour + almondtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Raisin + nutmegtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the mixture and help give the cooked pudding its set structure.
Bread crumbs
Provide the bulk and body that hold the pudding together and absorb moisture.
Beef suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and rich as it cooks.
Raisins
Add sweetness and chewy texture through the pudding.
Flour
Helps thicken the mixture and gives the pudding structure.
Brandy
Adds aroma and flavour to the pudding.

The step that matters

Tie the cloth securely but not too tight. The pudding needs room to expand as it cooks; a cloth tied too tight can restrict swelling and change the texture, while a loose cloth lets water in and makes the pudding soggy.

Swap the currant

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against raisin, beef, sugar, flour, bread, almond, nutmeg. 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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