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Dessert

Suet Plum Pudding

A steamed pudding made with suet, molasses, milk, raisins, flour, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Suet Plum Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a large bowl, combine suet, molasses, milk, raisins, flour, egg, cloves, cinnamon, nutmeg, salt, and baking soda, then mix until well combined.

  2. Pour the mixture into a pudding mold.

Steam and serve

  1. Place the mold in a kettle of water and boil for three hours.

  2. Serve with a sweet 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. Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Raisin + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

What each ingredient does

Suet
Melts during cooking to add richness and a moist, tender crumb.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, dark color, moisture and a deep, treacle-like flavor.
All-purpose flour
Provides the starch and gluten that give the pudding its structure.
Egg
Binds the batter and helps it set firm as it cooks.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidity of molasses to release gas, helping the pudding rise.
Milk
Adds moisture and helps the dry ingredients hydrate into a smooth batter.

The step that matters

Keep the water boiling steadily for the full three hours. The mold is cooked by steam and hot water, so the heat must stay constant. If the water stops boiling or drops low, the pudding cooks unevenly and can turn out dense and gummy in the center.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (molasses, milk, raisin, flour, egg, cinnamon, nutmeg):

  1. Cardamomfits about as well
  2. Clovethe original
  3. Allspicefits about as well
  4. Gingerfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against molasses, milk, raisin, flour, egg, cinnamon, nutmeg. 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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