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Dessert

Pudding Au Raisin

A steamed raisin pudding made with flour, eggs, butter, brandy, spices, and raisins.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Pudding Au Raisin

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, mix flour, eggs, butter, brandy, sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, and raisins.

  2. Add milk until the mixture forms a thick batter.

Boil

  1. Place the batter in a cloth soaked in boiling water and greased with butter and flour.

  2. Tie the cloth tightly and drop it into boiling water.

  3. Boil for one and a half 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. Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  4. Nutmeg + raisintop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,377 recipes

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

  5. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Provides the main structure that holds the pudding together as it cooks.
Eggs
Bind the batter and help it set firm during boiling.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, giving the pudding a softer, moister texture.
Raisins
Add concentrated sweetness and chewy texture throughout the pudding.

The step that matters

Tying the cloth tightly. A tight cloth keeps the batter compact and stops water from seeping in, so the pudding holds its shape instead of turning soggy or falling apart.

“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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