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Dessert

Brown Pudding

A steamed pudding made with flour, molasses, raisins, suet, baking soda, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Brown Pudding

Why it works: Flour and raisin 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 ↓

Brown Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. In a large bowl, combine the flour, molasses, raisins, chopped suet, baking soda, and salt, and mix until well combined.

  2. Transfer the mixture to a pudding mold or heatproof dish.

Steam and serve

  1. Steam for three hours.

  2. Serve with wine or vinegar 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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Molasses + raisintop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,577 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Flour + molassestop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,429 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Provides the structure that holds the pudding together as it steams.
Molasses
Adds dark color, moisture, and a deep sweetness to the pudding.
Raisins
Add chewy pockets of sweetness and moisture throughout the pudding.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and gives it a rich texture.
Baking soda
Reacts with the molasses's acidity to help the pudding rise and lighten.

The step that matters

Steam for three hours. Steaming must be gentle and steady, with water kept topping up, so the pudding cooks evenly and stays moist. Boiling water or a dry pot can make the outside tough or scorch it.

“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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