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Dessert

Thanksgiving Pudding

A steamed pudding made with raisins, suet, crackers, eggs, spices, milk, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Thanksgiving Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the pudding

  1. Beat the eggs until very light.

  2. Add the milk to the eggs and beat together.

  3. Gradually stir in the crushed crackers and then the remaining ingredients.

  4. If the mixture is not thick enough, add a little more crushed cracker.

Steam

  1. Steam the pudding for 6 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. Nutmeg + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Nutmeg + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Raisin + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

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

  5. Raisin + nutmegtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).

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.
Beef suet
Adds richness and moisture, keeping the pudding tender as it cooks.
Crackers
Soak up the liquid and give the pudding its body and firmness.
Raisins
Add chewy texture and natural sweetness.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps give the pudding a soft, moist crumb.

The step that matters

Adding more crushed cracker. Crackers absorb liquid and thicken the mixture. If it is too loose it may not set properly during steaming, so check the thickness before steaming and add cracker only as needed.

Swap the raisin

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, egg, nutmeg, sugar, cinnamon, milk, clove):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinthe original
  3. Figfits about as well
  4. Lemonfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, egg, nutmeg, sugar, cinnamon, milk, clove. 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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