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Dessert

Ten Cent Pudding

A steamed plum pudding made with molasses, suet, currants, raisins, milk, flour, spices, and a splash of brandy or whiskey.

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

Ten Cent Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Mix molasses, suet, currants, raisins, milk, baking soda, flour, spices, and brandy or whiskey.

  2. Cover and let sit overnight for better flavor.

  3. Dissolve the baking soda in a little warm water.

  4. Add the dissolved baking soda to the mixture.

Steam the pudding

  1. Tie the mixture in a cloth like a plum pudding.

  2. Steam for 3 hours; do not boil.

  3. If making a double quantity, steam for 4 hours.

Serve

  1. Serve with sauce made for plum pudding or wine sauce.

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. Currant + brandytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Currant + raisintop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,180 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).

  4. Molasses + raisintop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,577 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Raisin + brandytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,768 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

What each ingredient does

Molasses
Adds sweetness, moisture, and a dark color with deep flavor.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and tender as it steams.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the pudding together as it sets.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic molasses to help the pudding rise and lighten.
Milk
Hydrates the flour and adds moisture to the batter.
Raisins
Add chewy texture and concentrated sweetness throughout the pudding.

The step that matters

Steam for 3 hours without boiling. Gentle steam cooks the pudding evenly while keeping it moist. Boiling water can soak into the cloth-wrapped batter, making the pudding waterlogged and dense, so the water should be kept at a steady simmer-free steam level.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Figfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Currantthe original
  4. Applefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against molasses, raisin, milk, flour, brandy. 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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