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Dessert

Suet Pudding

A steamed pudding made with flour, suet, raisins, milk, molasses, and served with a butter‑sugar sauce flavored with wine or brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and cinnamon 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

Make the pudding

  1. Sift the flour, baking powder, salt, cloves, and cinnamon together twice.

  2. Chop the suet.

  3. Mix the chopped suet with the flour mixture and raisins.

  4. Beat the milk and molasses together.

  5. Stir the milk‑molasses mixture into the dry ingredients.

  6. Steam the mixture in a steamer for 1½ hours, ensuring the water is boiling before starting.

Make the sauce

  1. Cream the butter.

  2. Add the sugar, flour, and salt to the butter.

  3. Gradually stir in the boiling water and cook for a few minutes.

  4. Flavor the sauce with wine or brandy.

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. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Cinnamon + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  4. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  5. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

All-purpose flour
Provides the structure that holds the pudding together as it steams.
Suet
Adds richness and a moist, tender crumb as it melts during steaming.
Molasses
Adds dark sweetness, moisture and a deep caramel flavor.
Baking powder
Produces gas bubbles that lighten the pudding and help it rise.
Sugar
Sweetens the sauce and helps it thicken and turn glossy as it cooks.

The step that matters

Keep the steamer water boiling before the pudding goes in. Steady boiling steam cooks the pudding evenly and keeps it moist. If the water is not boiling when the pudding goes in, the cooking is slowed and the texture can turn heavy.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, cinnamon, raisin, milk, molasses, butter, egg):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, cinnamon, raisin, milk, molasses, butter, egg. 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.

More suet pudding recipes

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