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Dessert

Fruit Pudding

A steamed pudding made with suet, sugar, molasses, raisins, currants, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and cinnamon 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 ↓

Fruit Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. In a large bowl, combine the suet, brown sugar, citron, molasses, and eggs.

  2. Mix in the flour, raisins, currants, spices, and baking powder until well combined.

  3. Pour the mixture into a greased pudding mold.

Steam

  1. Steam for 2 hours or until a skewer inserted comes out clean.

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. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Raisin + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

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

  4. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. 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 richness and a moist, tender crumb as it melts during steaming.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure as they set during cooking.
Flour
Provides the main structure of the pudding once it sets.
Baking powder
Releases gas that lifts the batter, giving a lighter texture.
Molasses
Adds moisture, dark color, and a deep, slightly bitter sweetness.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and moisture while contributing to a soft texture.

The step that matters

Steam for 2 hours or until a skewer comes out clean. Steaming gently cooks the dense batter through without drying the outside. Test with a skewer in the centre, since an underdone middle will be wet and heavy.

Swap the currant

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, molasses, egg, flour, raisin, clove, cinnamon. 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 fruit pudding recipes

Steamed 91Boiled 17Cold 14English 14Baked 12Tapioca 11 See all 210 →

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