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Dessert

Hedgehog Pudding

A boiled pudding made with beef suet, flour, breadcrumbs, currants, raisins, sugar, candied citrus, nutmeg, lemon juice, salt, eggs, and ale.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 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 ↓

Hedgehog Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mixture

  1. In a bowl, mix the shredded beef suet, flour, bread crumbs, currants, raisins, sugar, candied lemon, candied orange, candied citron, grated nutmeg, lemon juice, and salt.

  2. Add the eggs and enough ale to form a stiff paste.

Boil and serve

  1. Tie the mixture in a cloth and plunge it into boiling water.

  2. Boil for five hours.

  3. Before serving, stick the blanched almonds into the pudding.

  4. 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. Lemon + orangetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  3. Currant + raisintop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,180 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).

  4. Beef + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  5. Raisin + orangetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,684 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the mixture and add structure as the pudding sets.
Beef suet
Adds richness and moisture, keeping the pudding tender as it cooks.
All-purpose flour
Thickens the paste and gives the pudding its body.
Bread crumbs
Soak up liquid and lighten the texture of the pudding.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps balance the dried fruit and spices.

The step that matters

Keeping the cloth-wrapped pudding at a steady boil. The pudding cooks for five hours in boiling water. If the water stops boiling or drops too low, the pudding cooks unevenly and can turn heavy. Keep the pot topped up with boiling water so the heat stays constant.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, flour, bread, raisin, sugar, lemon, orange):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, flour, bread, raisin, sugar, lemon, orange. 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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