Name: Steamed Fruit and Suet Pudding
Ingredients: 2 ½ cups all-purpose flour; 1 teaspoon baking soda; ½ teaspoon salt; ¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon; ¼ teaspoon ground nutmeg; 1 cup chopped suet or ⅔ cup butter; 1 cup chopped raisins or currants; 1 cup water or milk; 1 cup molasses

Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Steamed Fruit and Suet Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the dry mix

Sift the baking soda, salt, and spices into the flour.
Rub in the suet (or butter).
Add the raisins (or currants).

Combine and steam

Mix the water (or milk) and molasses.
Stir the mixture into the dry mixture.
Steam in a buttered pudding mold for 3 hours.

Serve

Serve with a foamy sauce.

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.

Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together11,917 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together9,075 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Cinnamon + raisintop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,390 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
Nutmeg + raisintop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,377 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).
Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

All-purpose flour: Provides the main structure that holds the pudding together as it steams.
Suet or butter: Fat coats the flour, tenderizing the crumb and adding richness.
Baking soda: Reacts with the molasses to produce gas that lightens the pudding.
Molasses: Adds sweetness, moisture, and a dark colour with a deep flavour.
Raisins or currants: Add sweetness and chewy pieces throughout the pudding.

The step that matters

Stir the mixture into the dry mixture. Stir just until combined. Overmixing develops gluten in the flour, which makes the steamed pudding tough and dense rather than tender.

“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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Steamed Fruit and Suet Pudding