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Dessert

Carrot Pudding

A steamed pudding made with grated carrots, suet, raisins, currants, sugar, flour, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Carrot Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Combine grated carrots, chopped suet, raisins, currants, sugar, flour, and spices in a large bowl.

  2. Mix well until all ingredients are combined.

  3. Transfer the mixture to a pudding mold.

Cook and serve

  1. Boil the pudding for 4 hours.

  2. After boiling, place the pudding in a 350°F (175°C) oven for 20 minutes.

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

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

  3. Raisin + sugartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

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

  4. Carrot + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,029 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

What each ingredient does

Grated carrots
Provide the main bulk, moisture and sweetness of the pudding.
Suet
Adds richness and fat, keeping the pudding moist and tender as it cooks.
Flour
Gives the pudding structure by thickening and binding the mixture as it cooks.
Raisins
Add concentrated sweetness and chewy texture throughout the pudding.
Currants
Add small bursts of sweetness and chewy texture throughout the pudding.

The step that matters

Boiling the pudding for 4 hours. Long, steady boiling cooks the flour and suet through and sets the mixture into a firm, moist pudding. Water must be kept at a steady simmer so the pudding cooks evenly without drying out or turning dense.

Swap the currant

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

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

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