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Dessert

Carrot Pudding

A steamed pudding made with flour, sugar, suet, raisins, currants, grated potatoes, grated carrots, and baking soda.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and raisin 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 ↓

Carrot Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the pudding

  1. In a large bowl, combine the flour, sugar, suet, raisins, currants, grated potatoes, grated carrots, and baking soda, and mix well until all ingredients are evenly combined.

  2. Transfer the mixture to a pudding mold or heatproof dish.

Cook

  1. Steam or boil the pudding for 3 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. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Potato + carrottop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,107 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  3. Raisin + curranttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,180 recipes

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

  4. Sugar + raisintop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

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

  5. Flour + carrottop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,029 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

All-purpose flour
Provides the main structure that holds the dense pudding together as it cooks.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and rich during long steaming.
Granulated sugar
Adds sweetness and helps give the pudding its soft, tender crumb.
Baking soda
Reacts with the mixture to help the pudding rise and lighten slightly.
Grated carrots
Contribute moisture and natural sweetness, keeping the pudding tender.
Grated potatoes
Add moisture and body, helping the pudding stay soft and cohesive.

The step that matters

Steam or boil for the full 3 hours. Long, steady gentle heat is needed to cook the dense batter through and make it tender. Cutting the time short leaves the centre undercooked and heavy, while a rolling boil can make the water level drop and the pudding unevenly cooked.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, sugar, raisin, potato, carrot):

  1. Figfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Orangefits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, sugar, raisin, potato, carrot. 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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