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Dessert

Saffron Pudding

A boiled pudding made with saffron, suet, flour, bread crumbs, ginger, eggs, and milk or cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Saffron and ginger match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 418 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Saffron Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the saffron

  1. Boil saffron in water until it has a clear light-yellow color and the flavor is extracted.

Make the dough

  1. In a bowl, mix minced suet, salt, flour, bread crumbs, and ginger.

  2. Stir in the saffron water, beaten eggs, and enough milk or cream to form a light, smooth dough.

Boil the pudding

  1. Turn the mixture into a floured cloth, tie securely, leaving room for expansion.

  2. Plunge the cloth into boiling water and boil for three hours until cooked through.

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. Saffron + gingertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together418 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  3. Saffron + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together447 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  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

Eggs
Bind the dough and add structure as the pudding sets when cooked.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and rich in texture.
Flour
Provides the starch and structure that hold the dough together.
Bread crumbs
Absorb liquid and give the pudding a light, tender body.
Saffron
Gives the pudding its golden color and distinctive aroma.

The step that matters

Leave room for expansion in the cloth. The dough swells as it cooks and absorbs heat. If the cloth is tied too tightly, the pudding can burst or cook unevenly, so room must be left inside the wrapping.

Swap the ginger

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Turmericfits better
  4. Gingerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against saffron, flour, bread, 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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