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Dessert

Raisin Pudding

A steamed pudding made with suet, molasses, sour milk, raisins, figs, flour, eggs, spices, and baking soda.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Raisin Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Mix the suet, molasses, sour milk, raisins, figs, flour, eggs, cloves, cinnamon, nutmeg, salt, and baking soda mixture in a large bowl.

  2. Fill a mold two-thirds full with the mixture.

Steam and serve

  1. Steam the pudding for 3 hours.

  2. Serve with hard sauce or a liquid sauce, as preferred.

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. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Raisin + flourtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Raisin + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

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

  4. Fig + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together614 recipes

    Shared aroma: cinnamyl acetate (sweet aromatic, cinnamon).

  5. Fig + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together404 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

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 steams.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, dark color and moisture to the batter.
Sour milk
Its acidity reacts with the baking soda to help the pudding rise.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk and molasses to produce gas that lightens the pudding.
All-purpose flour
Provides the structure that holds the pudding together after steaming.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure and richness as they set.

The step that matters

Filling the mold two-thirds full. Batter that rises during steaming needs room to expand. Overfilling can cause spillage or a dense, uneven pudding, so leave space at the top of the mold.

Swap the fig

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (molasses, milk, raisin, flour, egg, clove, cinnamon):

  1. Vanillafits about as well
  2. Figthe original
  3. Applefits less well
  4. Orangefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against molasses, milk, raisin, flour, egg, clove, cinnamon. 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.

More raisin pudding recipes

Steamed 49Baked 27Molasses 21Boiled 9Orange 6Apple 5 See all 88 →

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