Why it works: Red currant and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 26% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,156 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓
Raspberry Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the basin
Line a buttered basin with suet paste rolled to ½ inch thick.
Fill it with fresh raspberries or a mix of raspberries and red currants, and sprinkle a little sugar on top.
Cover the pudding with pastry, folding the edges securely.
Boil and serve
Wrap the basin in a floured cloth soaked in boiling water.
Place it in a saucepan with boiling water to cover and boil quickly until done, about 2 to 2.5 hours.
If needed, add boiling water to keep it covered.
Carefully turn out the pudding, cut a small round from the top to let steam escape, and serve immediately.
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.
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Red currant + sugartop 26% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together1,156 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Suet paste
- Forms a sturdy, tender crust that holds the fruit while it steams.
- Fresh raspberries
- Provide the main fruit flavour and juicy moisture that cooks into the filling.
- Red currants
- Add extra tartness and acidity to balance the sweetness of the raspberries.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the fruit and helps draw out juices as it cooks.
The step that matters
Keep the pudding covered with boiling water. Boiling water must stay around the basin during the long steaming. If the water level drops or cools, the suet crust cooks unevenly and the steam pressure needed for a light, cooked pudding is lost.
“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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