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Dessert

Suet Pudding

A steamed pudding made with suet, apples, flour, and sweeteners.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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 ↓

Suet Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a large bowl, combine the chopped suet, apples, brown sugar, molasses, baking soda, flour, sweet milk, walnuts, raisins, and baking powder.

  2. Mix well and add cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves to taste.

Steam and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a greased pudding mold.

  2. Steam for three hours.

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

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

  3. Apple + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,598 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  4. Walnut + cinnamontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,147 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Suet
Adds fat that melts during steaming, keeping the pudding moist and rich.
Flour
Forms the structure that holds the pudding together as it sets.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic molasses to produce gas that helps the pudding rise.
Baking powder
Adds additional lift so the pudding rises and stays light during steaming.
Molasses
Provides dark color, deep sweetness, and moisture, and reacts with the baking soda.
Apples
Add moisture and tender pieces that soften during steaming.

The step that matters

Steam for three hours. Steaming must be gentle and steady so the pudding cooks through and sets evenly. Letting the water boil dry or drop too low can leave the center dense or underdone, while the mold must be sealed so steam does not escape.

Swap the walnut

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Chestnutfits better
  3. Pistachiofits about as well
  4. Walnutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against apple, sugar, molasses, flour, milk, raisin, 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 suet pudding recipes

Lemon 28Boiled 19Steamed 12Potato 11Apple 10Raisin 10 See all 649 →

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