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Suet Pudding, Plain

A suet pudding made with suet, milk, eggs, flour, and optional raisins.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and raisin 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 Pudding, Plain

Ingredients

Directions

Mix the batter

  1. Combine chopped suet, milk, beaten eggs, salt, and enough flour to create a stiff batter that can still be poured from a spoon.

Cook

  1. Cover the bowl with a cloth and boil for three hours.

  2. Make the batter a little thinner, add a few raisins, and bake in a well-greased dish.

Optional leavening

  1. Add 2 teaspoons of baking powder to the flour or use sour milk with baking soda for improved flavor.

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. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + raisintop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,155 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanoic acid (acides aroma).

  4. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Milk and flour 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

Suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding rich and moist as it cooks.
Eggs
Bind the batter and help it set as it cooks.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the pudding together.
Milk
Adds moisture and sets the batter's pourable consistency.
Baking powder
Releases gas that lightens the pudding and helps it rise.

The step that matters

Boil for the full three hours. Long, steady steam heat cooks the egg and flour through and sets the batter. Cutting the time short can leave the centre wet and 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.

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