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Dessert

Miss Bertha Allen

A steamed or boiled suet pudding made with suet, flour, molasses, milk, raisins, currants, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By York, Neb. Presbyterian church. [from old catalog] · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 27 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and 81,222 recipes mention both. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

The recipe

Ingredients

Contains: egg, milk, wheat, tree nuts (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Also mentioned in the method: walnut

Directions

Make the steamed suet pudding

  1. Combine one cup suet (chopped finely), sweet milk, sugar, raisins or currants, three or four cups flour to make quite stiff, two teaspoons baking powder, and spice to taste.

  2. Steam for three or four hours.

  3. Combine one cup molasses, one cup sweet milk, one cup dried currants, one cup raisins, three fourths cup beef suet chopped fine, three cups flour, one teaspoon each of salt, soda, cloves and cinnamon.

  4. Boil for three hours.

  5. Combine three cups flour, one cup molasses, one cup suet finely chopped, half pound seeded raisins, three fourths cup sweet milk, half teaspoon soda, little salt, cloves, cinnamon and allspice to suit taste.

  6. Put in pudding dish and steam for three hours.

  7. Serve with sauce.

Make the tapioca pudding

  1. Wash one cup tapioca, soak it for five or six hours, then simmer it in a stew pan until it becomes quite clear; add one half cup sugar and one glass currant jelly.

  2. Serve cold with cream.

  3. Combine two thirds cup tapioca, one quart new milk, four eggs, one and one-fourth cups sugar, lemon extract to taste, piece of butter the size of a walnut, and little salt.

  4. Pour boiling water over the tapioca; let soak two or three hours before making the pudding.

  5. Bake.

Make the baked pudding

  1. Combine three cups milk, whites of six eggs whipped stiff, one cup powdered sugar, one tablespoon melted butter, one tablespoon rosewater, Eddy's Triple Extracts, and two heaping cups prepared flour.

  2. Whip the sugar into the stiffened whites, add butter and rosewater, then stir in the flour very lightly.

  3. Bake in a buttered mold in a rather quick oven.

  4. Serve with sauce.

By York, Neb. Presbyterian church. [from old catalog]. 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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Milk + buttertop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together81,222 recipes

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

  2. Currant + raisintop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together6,180 recipes

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

  3. Flour + raisintop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together9,071 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Milk + beeftop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together3,758 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

  5. Molasses + sugartop 6% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned 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

Suet
Melts during steaming or boiling, keeping the pudding rich and moist.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the pudding together as it sets.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, dark color and a moist, deep flavor.
Eggs
Set with heat to bind the custard and add richness.
Baking powder
Releases gas during cooking so the pudding rises and turns light.
Tapioca
Thickens the milk as it cooks, giving a clear, soft set.

The step that matters

Stiffening the egg whites and folding in the flour. Whipped whites hold the air that lifts the batter. Stirring the flour in very lightly keeps that air from collapsing, so the baked pudding stays light.

Flavor stand-ins for the currant

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

  1. Vanillabetter flavor fit
  2. Figbetter flavor fit
  3. Appleabout as good a flavor fit
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, molasses, milk, raisin, beef, sugar, butter. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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

Lemon 28Boiled 19Steamed 12Potato 11Apple 10Raisin 10 See all 649 →

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