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Dessert

Suet Plum Pudding

A suet-based pudding made with molasses, milk, raisins, flour, egg, spices, and baking soda, boiled for hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and cinnamon 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 Plum Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a large bowl, combine the suet, molasses, milk, raisins, flour, egg, nutmeg, cloves, cinnamon, baking soda, and salt. Mix until well combined.

  2. Pour the mixture into a pudding mold.

Steam

  1. Place the mold in a kettle of water and boil 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. Nutmeg + cinnamontop 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. Nutmeg + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Raisin + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

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

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 moist and rich as it cooks.
Flour
Forms the structure that holds the pudding together.
Egg
Binds the ingredients and adds structure to the batter.
Baking soda
Reacts with the molasses to lighten the batter and help it rise.
Cooking molasses
Adds sweetness, dark color and a moist, rich texture.

The step that matters

Boiling the pudding for 3 hours. The mold must stay submerged in steadily simmering water for the full time, because the pudding is cooked by steam and moist heat. If the water boils dry or the level drops, the pudding can cook unevenly and turn out dense or dry.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Cardamomfits about as well
  2. Clovethe original
  3. Allspicefits about as well
  4. Gingerfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against molasses, milk, raisin, flour, egg, nutmeg, cinnamon. 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.

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