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Dessert

Suet Dumplings

A batter of suet, flour, and grated muffins is dropped into boiling milk and cooked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,466 recipes. Both carry 2-undecenal, which smells sweet. The science ↓

Suet Dumplings

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Sift together the flour, baking powder, and salt.

  2. Add the beaten eggs, grated muffins, sugar, suet, and milk.

  3. Form into a smooth batter.

Boil and serve

  1. Drop by tablespoons into a quart of boiling milk, three or four at a time.

  2. When done, dish them out and pour over the milk they were boiled in.

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. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  2. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  3. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and milk 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
Adds richness and tenderness, as its fat melts and keeps the dumplings moist.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds each dumpling together while it boils.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure as they set in the hot milk.
Baking powder
Releases gas that helps the dumplings rise and turn light.
Grated muffins or bread
Soaks up liquid and adds a soft, tender crumb to the batter.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and gentle browning flavor to the dumplings.

The step that matters

Drop by tablespoons into boiling milk, three or four at a time. Crowding the pot drops the milk temperature and makes dumplings stick or cook unevenly. Small batches keep the milk boiling so each dumpling sets and cooks through.

“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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