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Dessert

Boston Pudding

Boston pudding is a fruit and flour mixture boiled for 3 hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Boston Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Finely chop the suet and stone and clean the fruit.

  2. Mix all the ingredients together in a large bowl.

  3. Moisten the mixture with a little milk if needed.

Cook and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a greased bowl, cover it, and boil for 3 hours.

  2. Serve with a sweet 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.

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 + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  4. Cinnamon + lemontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  5. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Provides the starch and structure that hold the pudding together as it steams.
Bread crumbs
Absorb liquid and add body, giving the pudding a soft, dense texture.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and rich during long cooking.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic lemon juice and cream of tartar to lighten the pudding.
Raisins
Add sweetness and chewy texture along with moisture from the fruit.

The step that matters

Pour the mixture into a greased bowl, cover it, and boil for 3 hours. The bowl must be greased and sealed so the pudding does not stick or dry out. Steady, long cooking sets the starches and softens the suet, so the texture stays even throughout.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (raisin, flour, bread, syrup, cinnamon, clove, lemon):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against raisin, flour, bread, syrup, cinnamon, clove, lemon. 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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