Skip to main content
Dessert

Boston Pudding

A boiled pudding made with raisins, currants, flour, suet, syrup, spices, and optional milk, served with sweet sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Hamilton, Margaret · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Boston Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Mix all the ingredients in a basin.

  2. Chop the suet very fine.

  3. Stone and clean the fruit.

  4. If required, moisten with a little milk.

Cook and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a greased bowl.

  2. Cover the bowl.

  3. Boil for 3 hours.

  4. Serve with sweet sauce.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

617Calories
14 gProtein
7 gFat
124 gCarbs
What these numbers assume: 4 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Grape1/2 cup (76g)62
Cream1 tbsp (15ml) heavy51
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  3. Raisin + breadtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,111 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Currant + breadtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,398 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  5. Flour + creamtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Raisins
Add sweetness and moisture, and a chewy texture in each bite.
Currants
Add small pockets of sweetness and a chewy texture throughout the pudding.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the pudding together as it cooks.
Bread soda
Reacts with the cream of tartar to release gas that lifts the pudding.
Cream of tartar
Acts as an acid that works with the bread soda to help the pudding rise.
Bread-crumbs
Adds bulk and soaks up liquid, giving a softer, more tender texture.

The step that matters

Cover the bowl securely before the long boil. A tight cover traps steam so the pudding cooks evenly in its moist environment. If the cover is loose, steam escapes and the pudding can dry out or cook unevenly over the 3 hours.

Swap the currant

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against raisin, flour, bread, cream. 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.

You might also like

Bread PuddingBread Pudding153 recipesSoft Ginger BreadSoft Ginger Bread85 recipesOrange Potato BreadOrange Potato Bread80 recipesRed Currant JellyRed Currant Jelly65 recipes