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Dessert

Suet Pudding

A steamed pudding made with suet, molasses, milk, raisins, wheat and graham flour, apples, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Suet Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Mix and fill

  1. In a large bowl, combine the suet, molasses, milk, raisins, wheat flour, graham flour, baking powder, baking soda, and chopped apple, then add cloves, cinnamon, and nutmeg to taste.

  2. Grease your molds well and pour the mixture into them.

Steam

  1. Steam the pudding for at least 3 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. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Raisin + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  4. Apple + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,598 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  5. Wheat + cinnamontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together537 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

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

What each ingredient does

Suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and rich as it steams.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, dark colour and a moist, sticky texture.
Wheat flour
Provides the main structure that holds the pudding together.
Graham flour
Adds bulk and a coarser, nutty texture to the pudding.
Baking powder
Releases gas that lifts the pudding and lightens its crumb.
Baking soda
Reacts with the molasses acidity to help the pudding rise and darken.

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (molasses, milk, raisin, wheat, flour, clove, cinnamon):

  1. Figfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Orangefits about as well
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against molasses, milk, raisin, wheat, flour, clove, cinnamon. 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

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

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