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Dessert

Suet Pudding

A steamed pudding made with suet, raisins, bread crumbs, fruit, spices, milk, sugar, flour, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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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 ↓

Suet Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Beat the eggs in a large bowl.

  2. Add the sugar and suet (measured without pressing down).

Make the batter

  1. Mix in the milk and bread crumbs, along with a generous amount of brown sugar and the fruit.

  2. Sift the flour with the baking powder and add it to the mixture along with the spices.

Steam

  1. Steam the pudding for 4 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.

  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 + flourtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Raisin + clovetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,070 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the mixture and add structure as they set during steaming.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and rich as it steams.
Bread crumbs
Absorb the milk and add body, giving the pudding a soft, tender crumb.
Flour
Provides the main structure that holds the pudding together.
Baking powder
Releases gas that lightens the batter and helps it rise.
Raisins
Add sweetness and chewy texture through the pudding.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Clovethe original
  4. Allspicefits about as well

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