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Dessert

Trinity College Pudding

A suet-based pudding with raisins, plums, and spices, baked in a mold.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Raisin and flour 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 ↓

Trinity College Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mixture

  1. In a large bowl, mix the suet, bread-crumbs, ratafias, raisins, plums, sugar, citron, candied peel, flour, salt, and spice.

  2. Incorporate the beaten yolks of the eggs, the egg whites, and the brandy into the mixture.

Steam the pudding

  1. Transfer the mixture into a well-buttered mold, ensuring it fills completely.

  2. Cover the mold with a cloth and plunge it into boiling water.

  3. Boil quickly for three 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. Raisin + flourtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Plum + brandytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together168 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Raisin + brandytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,768 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  4. Raisin + sugartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Suet
Adds richness and a moist, tender texture as it melts during cooking.
Bread-crumbs
Provides bulk and absorbs liquid, giving the pudding body.
Egg yolks
Bind the mixture and enrich it, helping it set as it cooks.
Egg whites
Add lift and lighten the texture of the pudding.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps balance the richness of the suet and fruit.

The step that matters

Plunge the mold into boiling water and keep it boiling. The pudding cooks by steam and hot water, so the water must stay at a steady boil for the full three hours. If it drops too low, the pudding cooks unevenly and can turn heavy and soggy.

Swap the plum

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Datesfits better
  4. Plumthe original

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