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Dessert

Troy Pudding

A boiled pudding made with raisins, molasses, suet, milk, flour, and baking soda.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Troy Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

Make the pudding

  1. In a large bowl, mix together the raisins, molasses, suet, milk, flour, and baking soda until well combined.

  2. Pour the mixture into a pudding mold or wrap it in a pudding cloth.

Cook and serve

  1. Boil for 3 hours.

  2. Serve with a sweet 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. 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. Molasses + flourtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,429 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

Flour
Forms the bulk of the batter, giving the pudding its body and structure as it cooks.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and rich as it steams.
Molasses
Adds sweetness and deep color, and helps keep the pudding moist.
Baking soda
Reacts with the molasses's acidity to produce gas that lightens the pudding.
Raisins
Add chewy texture and concentrated sweetness throughout the pudding.
Milk
Hydrates the flour and binds the batter into a cohesive mixture.

The step that matters

Keeping the pudding sealed while it boils. The mold or cloth must be tightly closed so water cannot enter during the long boil. Water entry makes the pudding soggy and dilutes its flavor. Keeping the seal secure keeps the steam working evenly on the batter.

“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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