Name: Fruit Pudding
Ingredients: 1 cup chopped suet; 1 cup molasses; 1 cup raisins; 1 cup sweet milk; 3 cups flour; 1 teaspoon baking soda; spices to taste

Why it works: Raisin and flour 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 ↓

Fruit Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the batter

Combine chopped suet, molasses, raisins, sweet milk, flour, baking soda, and spices in a large bowl.
Mix until well combined.

Cook

Pour the mixture into a farina kettle and boil for 4 hours.
After boiling, transfer the pudding to a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) and bake for 16 minutes.

Serve

Turn out the pudding and serve with wine 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.

Raisin + flourtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together9,075 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Molasses + raisintop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together3,577 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together78,219 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Raisin + milktop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,155 recipes

Shared aroma: decanoic acid (acides aroma).
Molasses + flourtop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together10,429 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

Suet: Melts during cooking to give the pudding richness and a tender, moist crumb.
Molasses: Adds sweetness, dark color and moisture to the pudding.
Flour: Builds the structure that holds the pudding together.
Baking soda: Reacts with the acid in molasses to release gas and lighten the batter.
Sweet milk: Hydrates the flour and adds moisture to the batter.

“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.