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Dessert

Suet Dumplings

A batter of flour, suet, breadcrumbs, sugar, eggs, milk, and salt is dropped into boiling milk to make dumplings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,466 recipes. Both carry 2-undecenal, which smells sweet. The science ↓

Suet Dumplings

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Sift together the flour and baking powder.

  2. Add the bread crumbs, suet, sugar, beaten eggs, milk, and salt; mix to form a smooth batter.

Cook and serve

  1. Drop tablespoonfuls of the batter into a quart of boiling milk, three or four at a time.

  2. When cooked, serve with the milk they were boiled in.

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. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  2. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  3. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and milk 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

All-purpose flour
Provides the main structure that holds the dumplings together as they cook.
Baking powder
Releases gas during cooking, helping the dumplings rise and turn light.
Suet
Adds fat that gives the dumplings a rich, tender texture.
Eggs
Bind the batter and help set the dumplings as they cook.
Bread crumbs
Absorb liquid and add body, keeping the dumplings soft and moist.

The step that matters

Dropping the batter into boiling milk. The batter must go into already boiling milk, and in small portions, so the dumplings set on contact and do not fall apart or cook unevenly. Crowding the pot lowers the liquid's temperature and makes them stick together.

“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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