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Dessert

French Pudding

A steamed pudding made with suet, molasses, sour milk, raisins, currants, flour, and spices.

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

French Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a large bowl, combine chopped suet, molasses, sour milk, baking soda, cinnamon, cloves, and salt.

  2. Stir in chopped raisins, currants, and flour until well mixed.

Steam

  1. Pour the mixture into a greased pudding mold.

  2. Steam for 4 hours until cooked through.

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. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Raisin + flourtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Cinnamon + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  4. Cinnamon + flourtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Clove + raisintop 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

Flour
Provides the structure that holds the pudding together as it sets.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and rich during steaming.
Molasses
Adds dark sweetness and moisture, and deepens the color of the pudding.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk and molasses to produce gas that lightens the pudding.
Sour milk
Supplies acidity that activates the baking soda and adds tenderness.
Raisins
Add chewy texture and concentrated sweetness throughout the pudding.

The step that matters

Steam for 4 hours until cooked through. Steam heat must cook the dense batter gently and fully. Lifting the lid or letting the water boil dry can cause uneven cooking or a dry, heavy pudding, so keep the water topped up and the pot steadily simmering.

Swap the currant

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against molasses, milk, cinnamon, clove, raisin, 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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