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Dessert

Trinity College Pudding

A boiled tongue pudding made with suet, bread crumbs, dried fruit, sugar, spices, eggs, and brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Raisin and flour 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 ↓

Trinity College Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the mixture

  1. In a bowl, mix the minced tongue, suet, bread crumbs, raisins, currants, sugar, candied peel, flour, salt, and mixed spice.

  2. Stir in the beaten egg yolks, egg white, and brandy to form a paste.

Cook and serve

  1. Transfer the mixture into a buttered mold, cover with a cloth, and place in boiling water.

  2. Boil for about three hours until cooked through.

  3. Carefully turn out the pudding before serving.

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. Raisin + flourtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Currant + brandytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Raisin + curranttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,180 recipes

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

  4. Raisin + brandytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,768 recipes

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

  5. Raisin + sugartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 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 set the pudding as it cooks.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and give the pudding a light, soft body.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and rich during long cooking.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps give a rich, dark flavor.
Brandy
Adds aroma and flavor to the pudding.

The step that matters

Boil for about three hours until cooked through. Steaming in boiling water cooks the egg-bound mixture gently and evenly. Too little time leaves the centre raw and wet, while the mold must stay covered so the pudding does not dry out.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, raisin, sugar, flour, egg, brandy):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Datesfits about as well
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, raisin, sugar, flour, 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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