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Dessert

Baltimore Pudding

A steamed pudding made with flour, suet, candied peel, sultanas, raisins, sugar, allspice, egg, milk, and baking powder.

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

Baltimore Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chop and shred the suet.

  2. In a large bowl, mix the suet with flour, baking powder, candied peel, sugar, sultanas, raisins, and allspice.

  3. Add the egg and milk, and mix until combined.

Cook and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a greased pudding basin.

  2. Tie a scalded and floured cloth over the top.

  3. Boil for 4 hours.

  4. When cooked, turn out of the basin and serve with sweet sauce or custard.

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 + allspicetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,475 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).

  3. Flour + allspicetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,302 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  5. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and milk 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

All-purpose flour
Forms the structure of the pudding as it sets during boiling.
Suet
Adds richness and a moist, tender crumb as it melts into the batter.
Baking powder
Releases gas during cooking so the pudding rises and stays light.
Egg
Binds the mixture and helps it set firm when cooked.
Milk
Hydrates the flour and sugar to form a soft, pourable batter.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and contributes to browning of the surface.

The step that matters

Tie a scalded and floured cloth over the top. The cloth must be sealed snugly over the basin so steam cannot escape and the pudding cooks evenly. A loose cover lets water in or steam out, leaving the pudding soggy or dry.

Swap the allspice

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Jalapenofits better
  4. Allspicethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, sugar, raisin, egg, milk. 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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