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Dessert

Carrot Pudding

A steamed pudding made with carrots, potatoes, nuts, dates, raisins, suet, and spices.

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

Carrot Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Cream the suet and sugar together.

  2. Dissolve the baking soda in a little water and add it to the mixture.

  3. Stir in the remaining ingredients until well combined.

Steam and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into buttered molds.

  2. Steam for 4 hours.

  3. Serve with sea foam sauce or hard 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. 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. Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Carrot + potatotop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,107 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  5. Carrot + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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 in texture.
Baking soda
Reacts with the batter to lighten it and help it rise.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the pudding together after steaming.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the suet cream into a light base.
Ground carrots
Adds moisture and body along with the other ground ingredients.

The step that matters

Steam for 4 hours. Steaming gently at a steady simmer cooks the batter through without drying it. Low, even heat sets the structure slowly, so the pudding stays moist and firm rather than cracking or turning tough.

Swap the nuts

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (carrot, sugar, potato, clove, nutmeg, dates, cinnamon):

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Chestnutfits better
  3. Cashew nutfits better
  4. Nutsthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, sugar, potato, clove, nutmeg, dates, 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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