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Dessert

Ingoldsby Christmas Puddings

A rich pudding made with bread crumbs, flour, raisins, currants, suet, sugar, candied peel, spices, eggs, and brandy, boiled for six hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 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 ↓

Ingoldsby Christmas Puddings

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Thoroughly mix the bread crumbs, flour, raisins, currants, suet, sugar, candied peel, nutmeg, mixed spice, and grated lemon rinds.

  2. In a separate bowl, beat the eggs and then add them to the mixture. Pour in the brandy and mix well.

  3. Boil the mixture for six 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. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Nutmeg + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Raisin + nutmegtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,377 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Raisin + curranttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,180 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the dry ingredients together and add structure and richness as the pudding sets.
Suet
Adds fat and richness, keeping the pudding moist and tender as it cooks.
Bread crumbs
Absorb liquid and give the pudding its soft, body-filled texture.
Raisins
Add sweetness and a chewy texture throughout the pudding.
Brandy
Adds aroma and flavour, and helps preserve the finished pudding.

The step that matters

Boil the mixture for six hours. Long, steady simmering cooks the eggs and starch through and sets the pudding evenly. Too little time leaves it wet and underset, while a hard boil can make it dense or cause the basin to crack, so keep the water at a gentle simmer.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, flour, raisin, sugar, nutmeg, lemon, egg):

  1. Figfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Orangefits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, flour, raisin, sugar, nutmeg, lemon, egg. 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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