Skip to main content
Dessert

Troy Pudding

A sweet pudding made with raisins, suet, molasses, milk, eggs, flour, baking soda, spices, and salt, boiled for hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Troy Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Mix all the dry ingredients in a bowl.

  2. In another bowl, combine molasses, beaten eggs, and milk.

  3. Add the wet mixture to the dry ingredients and stir until well combined.

  4. Pour the mixture into a buttered bowl.

Steam

  1. Boil for three hours, ensuring the water is kept boiling throughout.

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. Raisin + flourtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Raisin + molassestop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,577 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Raisin + milktop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,155 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanoic acid (acides aroma).

  5. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure as they set during cooking.
Flour
Forms the main structure of the pudding as the starches set with heat.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, dark color, and moisture with a rich flavor.
Baking soda
Reacts with the molasses acidity to help the pudding rise and lighten.
Suet
Adds richness and moisture, giving a tender texture as it melts.

The step that matters

Keep the water boiling throughout. The pudding cooks gently by steam and hot water over three hours. If the water drops below a boil, the pudding cooks unevenly and can turn heavy or soggy, so the pot must be topped up with boiling water as needed.

“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.

You might also like

Molasses CookiesMolasses Cookies96 recipesMolasses CakeMolasses Cake90 recipesMolasses Sponge CakeMolasses Sponge Cake9 recipesWhite CakeWhite Cake431 recipes