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Dessert

Suet Pudding

A sweet pudding made with suet, sugar, molasses, spices, dried fruit, walnuts, brandy, and a stiff batter, boiled or steamed.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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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 ↓

Suet Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Rub together the chopped suet and sugar in a bowl.

  2. Add the molasses, cloves, cinnamon, nutmeg, and baking soda dissolved in sour milk.

  3. Stir in the currants, raisins, chopped walnuts, and brandy.

  4. Add enough flour to create a stiff batter.

Cook

  1. Boil or steam the mixture for 3 hours.

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. Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Cinnamon + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  5. Nutmeg + raisintop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,377 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding rich and moist as it cooks.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk and molasses to lighten the pudding.
Sour milk
Its acidity activates the baking soda, helping the pudding rise.
Molasses
Adds dark color, moisture, and a deep sweetness.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the stiff batter together.
Raisins
Add chewy sweetness and moisture throughout the pudding.

The step that matters

Dissolve the baking soda in the sour milk before adding it. Baking soda needs an acid to react and produce gas. Dissolving it fully in the sour milk spreads the reaction evenly, so the pudding rises uniformly instead of leaving pockets of soda or a bitter taste.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, molasses, clove, cinnamon, nutmeg, milk, raisin):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Orangefits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, molasses, clove, cinnamon, nutmeg, milk, raisin. 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

Lemon 28Boiled 19Steamed 12Potato 11Apple 10Raisin 10 See all 649 →

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