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
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Chop the suet finely and flour it.
Add the floured currants and citron.
Add the washed, seeded, chopped, and floured raisins.
Make the batter
Mix in the milk, salt, baking soda, and molasses.
Finally, add the flour to make a stiff batter.
Steam and serve
Put the mixture into a mold and steam for three hours, or boil it.
Serve hot with hard and foamy sauces.
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.
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Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together9,075 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Currant + raisintop 10% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together6,180 recipes
Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).
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Molasses + raisintop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together3,577 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
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Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Milk + raisintop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,155 recipes
Shared aroma: decanoic acid (acides aroma).
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 moist and rich as it cooks.
- Flour
- Provides the structure that holds the stiff batter together as it steams.
- Molasses
- Adds sweetness, depth of flavour and a dark colour to the batter.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the molasses to lighten the batter and help it rise.
- Sweet milk
- Moistens the flour and binds the batter into a workable mixture.
The step that matters
Steaming the pudding. The mixture must be sealed in its mold and kept at a steady simmer for the full three hours. Water entering the mold or a drop in steam makes the pudding soggy and uneven in texture.
Swap the currant
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (molasses, milk, flour, raisin):
- Figfits better
- Vanillafits better
- Datesfits better
- Currantthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against molasses, milk, flour, raisin. 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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