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

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the batter

Sift the baking soda, salt, cinnamon, and nutmeg into the flour.
Rub in the suet or butter until well combined.
Add the chopped raisins and mix well.
Stir in the water or milk and molasses until fully incorporated.

Steam and serve

Pour the mixture into a buttered mold and steam for 3 hours.
Serve with 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: Forms the structure of the pudding as the batter sets during steaming.
Baking soda: Reacts with the molasses to lighten the batter and help it rise.
Suet or butter: Adds richness and a tender, moist crumb by coating the flour.
Raisins: Add pockets of concentrated sweetness and chewy texture throughout the pudding.
Molasses: Adds deep sweetness, dark color, and moisture, and reacts with the baking soda.

The step that matters

Steaming for the full 3 hours. Steam keeps the pudding moist and cooks it gently and evenly. Water left to boil dry or a low steamer can leave the pudding dense or undercooked in the center.

“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 Suet Fruit Pudding