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Dessert

Persimmon Pudding

A pudding made from persimmon puree, suet, baking powder, eggs, milk, and flour, boiled in a bag.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Persimmon and flour share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 63 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Persimmon Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, combine the persimmon puree, suet, baking powder, beaten eggs, salt, and sweet milk.

  2. Gradually add flour until you achieve a stiff batter.

  3. Transfer the batter into a Swiss bag and tie it securely.

Boil and serve

  1. Drop the bag into boiling water and boil for three hours.

  2. Serve with hard 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.

  1. Persimmon + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together63 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Persimmon + milktop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  5. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

Persimmons
Provide the main body, sweetness and fruity flavor of the pudding.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure as the pudding sets.
Baking powder
Releases gas that lightens the pudding and helps it rise.
Suet
Adds fat that enriches the texture and keeps the pudding moist.
Flour
Gives the batter body so it holds its shape when boiled.

The step that matters

Keeping the bag sealed and the water boiling. A loose tie lets water seep into the bag and dilute the batter, while water that drops below a boil cooks the pudding unevenly. Both lead to a soggy or dense result.

Swap the persimmon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, milk, flour):

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Figfits about as well
  4. Persimmonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, milk, flour. 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.

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