Name: Suet Pudding
Ingredients: 1 cup suet, chopped fine; 1 cup molasses; 1½ cups flour; 1 egg; 1 cup raisins; 1 heaping teaspoon baking soda; ½ teaspoon cinnamon; a little less than ½ teaspoon cloves; 1 slice stale bread, crumbed

Why it works: Cinnamon and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Suet Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the pudding

Combine suet, molasses, flour, egg, raisins, baking soda, cinnamon, cloves, and bread crumbs in a bowl, then mix well until combined.
Transfer the mixture to a greased pudding mold.
Steam for 3 hours.

Make the sauce

Combine sugar, water, butter, flour, and vinegar in a saucepan.
Boil slowly for a few minutes.
Add nutmeg or lemon flavoring to taste.

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.

Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together14,189 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together9,075 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Raisin + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,390 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together17,341 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Raisin + clovetop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,070 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Suet: Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and rich as it steams.
Molasses: Provides dark sweetness, moisture and a deep caramel flavor.
Flour: Forms the structure that holds the pudding together as it sets.
Egg: Binds the ingredients and helps give the pudding a set, cohesive texture.
Baking soda: Reacts with the acidic molasses to lighten the batter and help it rise.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (molasses, flour, egg, raisin, cinnamon, bread):

Nutmegfits better
Clovethe original
Allspicefits about as well
Cardamomfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against molasses, flour, egg, raisin, cinnamon, bread. 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.