Skip to main content
Dessert

Christmas Pudding

A steamed pudding made with suet, raisins, sugar, flour, bread crumbs, milk, eggs, spices, and baking powder or soda.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Raisin and flour 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 ↓

Christmas Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a large bowl, combine the suet, raisins, sugar, flour, bread crumbs, milk, eggs, and spices.

  2. If using sweet milk, add baking powder; if using sour milk, add baking soda. Mix well until all ingredients are combined.

Steam and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a greased pudding mold.

  2. Steam for three hours.

  3. Serve with a sauce of your choice.

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. Raisin + flourtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  3. Raisin + sugartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

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

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

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

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

Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure as the pudding sets.
Flour
Provides the main structure once the pudding is steamed and set.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and rich in texture.
Baking powder or baking soda
Releases gas that helps the pudding rise and become light.
Bread crumbs
Absorb liquid and add body to the batter.

The step that matters

Adding the leavener to the batter. Baking powder or baking soda must match the milk: sweet milk needs baking powder and sour milk needs baking soda, because baking soda needs an acid to react. Using the wrong one can leave the pudding flat or give it an off taste.

Swap the raisin

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, flour, bread, milk, egg. 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 christmas pudding recipes

Sauce 4Cottage 4Apple 3 See all 175 →

You might also like

Bread PuddingBread Pudding153 recipesSoft Ginger BreadSoft Ginger Bread85 recipesOrange Potato BreadOrange Potato Bread80 recipesBrown Bread PuddingBrown Bread Pudding47 recipes