Name: Suet Pudding
Ingredients: 2 cups bread crumbs; 1 cup raisins; ½ cup suet; 1 cup sweet milk; 1 teaspoon baking soda; 1 teaspoon cinnamon; ½ teaspoon cloves; 1 tablespoon sugar; ¼ teaspoon salt

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 ↓

Suet Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Combine bread crumbs, raisins, suet, sweet milk, baking soda, cinnamon, cloves, sugar, and salt in a bowl, and mix well until all ingredients are combined.
Transfer the mixture to a greased pudding mold.
Steam the pudding for 2 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.

Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together14,189 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
Raisin + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,390 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
Raisin + clovetop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,070 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).
Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together12,655 recipes

Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).
Cinnamon + sugartop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together30,779 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Cinnamon and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Bread crumbs: Provide the bulk and body that hold the pudding together.
Suet: Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and rich as it steams.
Sweet milk: Moistens the dry ingredients and hydrates the crumbs for a soft texture.
Baking soda: Reacts with the mixture to lighten the pudding and help it rise.
Raisins: Add pockets of sweetness and chewy texture throughout the pudding.

Swap the clove

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

Nutmegfits better
Cardamomfits about as well
Clovethe original
Allspicefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, raisin, milk, cinnamon, sugar. 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.