Skip to main content
Dessert

Rhubarb Pudding

A boiled pudding made with stewed rhubarb, sugar, lemon rind, and pastry covering.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Rhubarb and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 546 recipes. Both carry acetic acid, which smells sour, vinegar. The science ↓

Rhubarb Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Butter a basin that holds 1½ pints and line it with suet crust rolled to ½ inch thick.

  2. Fill the basin with stewed rhubarb, moist sugar, and lemon rind.

  3. Cover with pastry rolled to the same thickness, pinch the edges securely, and tie in a cloth.

Boil and serve

  1. Boil in plenty of water for 2 hours, ensuring the water remains boiling.

  2. Carefully turn out the pudding and cut a small opening in the top for steam to escape.

  3. Serve with sweetened melted butter or a jug of cream and sifted sugar.

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. Rhubarb + lemontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together546 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  2. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

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

  3. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Rhubarb + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,852 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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

Rhubarb
Forms the tart fruit filling and releases moisture that steams the pudding.
Moist sugar
Sweetens the tart rhubarb and helps it soften into a syrupy filling.
Suet crust
Forms a sturdy lining and cover that holds the filling while it steams.
Lemon rind
Adds bright citrus aroma that lifts the sweetness of the rhubarb.

The step that matters

Keep the water at a steady boil. A steady boil keeps the steam and heat even so the suet crust cooks through. If the water drops below boiling, the pudding cooks slowly and the crust can turn heavy and soggy.

Swap the rhubarb

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, sugar, lemon):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. Rhubarbthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, lemon. 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.

More rhubarb pudding recipes

Boiled 5 See all 56 →

You might also like

Lemon CakeLemon Cake228 recipesRhubarb PieRhubarb Pie152 recipesLemon IceLemon Ice147 recipesLemon SherbetLemon Sherbet103 recipes