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Dessert

Victoria Pudding, Superior

A steamed pudding made with suet, bread crumbs, flour, fruit, sugar, eggs, milk, and brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Apple and apricot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 777 recipes. Both carry gamma-undecalactone, which smells peach, sweet. The science ↓

Victoria Pudding, Superior

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, mix the beef suet, bread crumbs, dried flour, apples, apricot jam, candied citron, dried cherries, and sugar thoroughly.

  2. Stir in the beaten eggs, cream or milk, and brandy until well combined.

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

Boil and serve

  1. Tie the mold in a floured cloth and plunge it into boiling water.

  2. Boil quickly for 1.5 hours until cooked through.

  3. Let it stand for 3-4 minutes, then turn it out onto a glass dish.

  4. Serve with brandy sauce.

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. Apple + apricottop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together777 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-undecalactone (peach, sweet).

  2. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

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

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

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

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

  5. Bread + appletop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,790 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef suet
Melts during boiling, adding richness and a moist, tender crumb.
Eggs
Set when heated, giving the pudding structure and holding it together.
Dried flour
Provides starch that sets with the eggs to form the pudding's body.
Bread crumbs
Absorb liquid and add bulk, giving a light, soft texture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the fruit and brandy flavours.
Apricot jam
Adds sweetness, fruity flavour and some moisture to the batter.

The step that matters

Filling the mold completely before boiling. The batter needs room only to rise slightly as it sets. Leaving it fully packed, with the cloth tied tightly, lets the pudding hold its shape and cook evenly, while a loose or underfilled mold can let water seep in and make it soggy.

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, bread, flour, apricot, sugar, egg, cream):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, bread, flour, apricot, sugar, egg, cream. 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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