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Dessert

Six-cup Pudding

A steamed pudding made with brown sugar, raisins, bread crumbs, milk, flour, suet, and baking soda.

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 ↓

Six-cup Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Mix and fill

  1. In a large bowl, mix together the brown sugar, raisins, bread crumbs, milk, flour, chopped suet, and baking soda until well combined.

  2. Transfer the mixture to a pudding mold or heatproof dish.

Steam and serve

  1. Steam the pudding for 3 to 4 hours until it is a rich brown color.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  3. Sugar + raisintop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

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

  4. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Raisin + milktop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,155 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanoic acid (acides aroma).

Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

Flour
Provides the main structure that holds the pudding together as it cooks.
Bread crumbs
Absorb liquid and add body, giving the pudding a soft, tender crumb.
Baking soda
Reacts with the sugar and moisture to help the pudding rise and lighten.
Chopped suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and rich as it steams.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and molasses flavor, and helps the pudding darken during steaming.

The step that matters

Steam for the full time. Steaming gently and for the full 3 to 4 hours lets the batter set through and cook evenly. Stopping early leaves the centre wet and dense, and the rich brown colour develops only with long, steady heat.

Swap the raisin

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

  1. Vanillafits about as well
  2. Raisinthe original
  3. Figfits less well
  4. Peachfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, bread, milk, 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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