Skip to main content
Dessert

Suet Dumplings. No. 1

A baked dumpling made with bread crumbs, suet, eggs, flour, baking soda, and milk, served hot with wine sauce or syrup and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Bread and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,466 recipes. Both carry 2-undecenal, which smells sweet. The science ↓

Suet Dumplings. No. 1

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

  1. In a bowl, combine bread crumbs, chopped suet, and the beaten egg whites and yolks.

  2. Sift cream of tartar into flour and add to the mixture.

  3. Stir in dissolved baking soda and salt.

  4. Add enough milk to form a stiff paste.

Shape and cook

  1. Flour your hands and shape the mixture into balls.

  2. Wrap each ball in a cloth that has been wrung out in hot water and floured inside, leaving room for expansion.

  3. Drop the dumplings into boiling water and cook for about 45 minutes.

Serve

  1. Serve hot with wine sauce or syrup and butter.

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. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  2. Beef + milktop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,759 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

  3. Bread + beeftop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  4. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

Eggs
Bind the mixture and add richness and structure as they set when cooked.
Bread crumbs
Form the bulk of the dumpling and absorb moisture to hold its shape.
Beef suet
Adds fat that keeps the dumplings tender and moist as they cook.
Cream of tartar
Acidic component that reacts with baking soda to help the dumplings rise.
Baking soda
Reacts with the cream of tartar to produce gas that lightens the dumplings.
Flour
Adds starch that helps the dumplings hold together and set firm.

The step that matters

Wrapping the dumplings in cloth. The cloth must be wrung out and floured so it does not soak up water or stick, and the dumpling needs room to expand while cooking. Too tight a wrap can restrict rising and cause the dumpling to burst or turn dense.

“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.

You might also like

Bread PuddingBread Pudding153 recipesSoft Ginger BreadSoft Ginger Bread85 recipesOrange Potato BreadOrange Potato Bread80 recipesBrown Bread PuddingBrown Bread Pudding47 recipes