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Dessert

Paradise Pudding

A steamed apple pudding made with suet, bread crumbs, eggs, brandy, and served with a brandy-apple jelly sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,318 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Paradise Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the pudding

  1. Mix the shredded suet, bread crumbs, salt, sugar, nutmeg, lemon or orange rind and juice, and chopped apples in a bowl.

  2. Add the whisked eggs and brandy, and mix thoroughly.

  3. Transfer the mixture to a buttered mold, filling it completely.

  4. Tie a floured cloth over the mold and plunge it into boiling water.

  5. Boil for 3 hours or bake at 350°F (175°C) for 1.5 hours.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. For the sauce, combine apple jelly and brandy in a saucepan and stir gently until dissolved.

  2. Gradually add the thick cream, stirring briskly until just before boiling.

  3. Serve the pudding hot with the sauce poured over it.

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. Nutmeg + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Apple + brandytop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,291 recipes

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

  3. Nutmeg + appletop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,790 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

  5. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef suet
Adds richness and fat that keeps the pudding moist and tender as it cooks.
Bread crumbs
Provides body and absorbs liquid, giving the pudding a light, soft structure.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and set as it cooks, giving the pudding its firm yet tender structure.
Apples
Supply moisture and tart fruitiness that balances the sweetness of the pudding.
Moist sugar
Adds sweetness and a molasses-like depth of flavour to the pudding.
Apple jelly
Adds sweetness and fruit flavour to the sauce, and helps it stay smooth.

The step that matters

Adding the cream to the sauce. Cream can curdle or separate if it is overheated. Adding it gradually and stirring briskly keeps the sauce smooth, and it should be stopped just before it reaches a boil.

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, bread, sugar, nutmeg, lemon, egg, brandy):

  1. Figfits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Orangefits better
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, bread, sugar, nutmeg, lemon, egg, brandy. 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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