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Dessert

Plum or Suet Pudding

A suet pudding made with eggs, milk, bread, flour, suet, raisins, brandy, sugar, nutmeg, ginger, and salt, boiled for hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and raisin 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 ↓

Plum or Suet Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the pudding

  1. In a large bowl, combine the eggs, milk, grated bread, flour, suet, raisins (if using), brandy, sugar, nutmeg, ginger, and salt. Mix well until all ingredients are fully combined.

  2. Transfer the mixture to a pudding cloth or a greased pudding mold.

Cook

  1. Boil in a large pot of water for 4 hours, ensuring the water level remains consistent.

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. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Raisin + nutmegtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).

  3. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  5. Raisin + brandytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,768 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the mixture and help it set into a firm, sliceable pudding as it cooks.
Suet
Adds richness and fat that keeps the pudding moist and tender during long cooking.
Grated bread
Soaks up the liquid and gives the pudding a light, crumbly body.
Flour
Provides structure so the pudding holds together when boiled and turned out.
Milk
Supplies liquid that hydrates the bread and flour and helps form a custard-like set.
Brandy
Adds aroma and flavour while contributing a little moisture to the mixture.

The step that matters

Keep the water level consistent while boiling. The pudding cooks gently in water over four hours. If the water drops and the pot boils dry or the level falls below the pudding, the exposed part overcooks and dries, and uneven heat can make the texture patchy.

Swap the raisin

The recipe marks raisin as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, milk, bread, flour, brandy, sugar, nutmeg):

  1. Raisinthe original
  2. Vanillafits about as well
  3. Figfits less well
  4. Peachfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, milk, bread, flour, brandy, sugar, nutmeg. 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

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