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Dessert

Aunt Helen's Suet Pudding

A suet pudding made with molasses, raisins, and a sweet sauce of butter, sugar, eggs, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By North End Club (Chicago, Ill.) · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 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 ↓

Aunt Helen's Suet Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the pudding

  1. Combine one cup of suet chopped fine, a pinch of salt, one cup of New Orleans molasses, ½ teaspoon soda in molasses, one cup milk, three cups flour (no more), and two cups raisins, chopped, in a bowl.

  2. Place the mixture in a mold and boil for three hours.

Make the sauce

  1. Cream one cup butter with two cups granulated sugar, then add two eggs beaten stiff.

  2. Combine the eggs, creamed butter, and sugar, and heat the mixture in a double boiler.

  3. Stir occasionally until the mixture foams.

  4. Just before serving add brandy, vanilla, nutmeg, and six tablespoons of boiling water.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

965Calories
28 gProtein
27 gFat
152 gCarbs

Counts 9 of 10 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 9 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Milk1 cup (244ml) whole149
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Grape1/2 cup (76g)62
Molasses1 tbsp (20g)58
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49
Nutmeg1 tsp ground (2.2g)12
Salt1 tsp (6g)0
Waternot in our table0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By North End Club (Chicago, Ill.). 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. See the original page.

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

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

  3. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Molasses + sugartop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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, setting as its starch cooks in the moist pudding.
Suet
Adds fat and richness, keeping the pudding moist and tender as it cooks.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, dark color and moisture, and its acidity reacts with the soda.
Soda
Reacts with the acidic molasses to produce gas that lightens the pudding.
Eggs
Beaten stiff, they add air and help bind the mixture into a set structure.
Butter
Creamed with sugar, it adds fat that gives the mixture a rich, smooth texture.

The step that matters

Heating the egg mixture in the double boiler. Eggs thicken and can scramble if overheated, so gentle, indirect heat is needed to keep the mixture smooth and foaming rather than curdled.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Gingerfits less well
  4. Allspicefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against molasses, milk, flour, raisin, butter, sugar, 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.

More suet pudding recipes

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