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Dessert

Old Fashioned English Pudding

A steamed suet pudding with raisins, bread crumbs, and molasses.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 ↓

Old Fashioned English Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. In a large bowl, mix the suet, flour, raisins, bread crumbs, and molasses thoroughly.

  2. Add enough water to mold the mixture into a shape.

Steam and serve

  1. Place the mixture into a mold and steam for 4 hours.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Raisin + molassestop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,577 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Flour + molassestop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,429 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Raisin + breadtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,111 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Flour + breadtop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together10,383 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and bread barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 10,383 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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.
All-purpose flour
Provides the structure that holds the pudding together once steamed.
Raisins
Add sweetness and chewy texture throughout the pudding.
Bread crumbs
Absorb liquid and lighten the texture of the dense mixture.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, dark color and a deep, caramel-like flavor.

The step that matters

Adding the water. Too little water leaves the mixture crumbly and unable to hold a shape, while too much makes it soggy and dense. Add it gradually until the mixture just holds together when pressed.

“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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