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Suet Pudding

A steamed suet pudding with raisins, molasses, and flour, served hot with a sweet sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 ↓

Suet Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the pudding

  1. Combine chopped suet, raisins, molasses, flour, milk, and baking powder in a large bowl.

  2. Mix well until all ingredients are combined.

  3. Pour the mixture into a greased pudding mold.

  4. Boil for 3.5 hours.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. Beat together sugar, butter, egg, and vinegar for 15 minutes to make the sauce.

  2. Heat the sauce until it is scalding hot.

  3. Serve the pudding while hot with the 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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Molasses + sugartop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Suet
Adds fat that melts during boiling, keeping the pudding moist and rich.
Flour
Forms the structure that holds the pudding together as it cooks.
Baking powder
Releases gas during cooking, helping the pudding rise and become light.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, dark color, and moisture to the pudding.
Egg
Binds the sauce ingredients and adds richness to its texture.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that gives the sauce a sharper, brighter flavor.

The step that matters

Boil for 3.5 hours. The pudding must boil steadily for the full time so the flour sets and the baking powder fully leavens. Letting the water drop below a simmer can leave the pudding dense and undercooked in the center.

Swap the raisin

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against molasses, flour, milk, sugar, butter, egg, vinegar. 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

Lemon 28Boiled 19Steamed 12Potato 11Apple 10Raisin 10 See all 649 →

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