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Dessert

Sweet Pudding

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Sweet Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Combine molasses, suet, milk, raisins, baking soda, salt, and mixed spices in a large bowl.

  2. Gradually add flour, mixing until well combined.

Steam and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a greased pudding mold.

  2. Steam for 3½ 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. Molasses + raisintop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,577 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Milk + raisintop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,155 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanoic acid (acides aroma).

  5. Molasses + flourtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,429 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Molasses
Adds sweetness, moisture, and the dark, rich flavor that defines the pudding.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding tender and moist as it cooks.
Flour
Provides the starch and gluten structure that holds the pudding together.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic molasses to produce gas that lightens the pudding.
Milk
Adds liquid that hydrates the flour and keeps the batter moist.

The step that matters

Steaming the pudding. Steam must stay steady and the water must not boil dry. Gentle, consistent heat cooks the batter evenly and keeps it moist, while dropping heat can leave the pudding dense or undercooked in the centre.

“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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