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Dessert

Pudding a LA Scoones

A steamed pudding made with apples, currants, suet, raisins, sugar, breadcrumbs, lemon rind and juice, eggs, and brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Currant and brandy are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and 3,057 recipes mention both. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

The recipe

Ingredients

Contains: egg, wheat (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

Prepare

  1. Mix all ingredients together until well combined.

  2. Transfer the mixture into a buttered basin.

Cook and serve

  1. Boil the pudding for 2 hours.

  2. Sift sugar over the pudding when serving.

  3. Serve with wine or punch sauce on the side.

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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Currant + brandytop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together3,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Currant + raisintop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together6,180 recipes

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

  3. Apple + brandytop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together1,291 recipes

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

  4. Apple + curranttop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together1,918 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  5. Raisin + brandytop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together2,768 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 help it set as it cooks into a firm, cohesive pudding.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and rich as it steams.
Bread-crumbs
Absorb moisture and give the pudding body and a tender structure.
Currants
Provide concentrated fruit sweetness and chewy texture throughout the pudding.
Apples
Add moisture and tartness that brightens the rich, dense batter.
Sugar
Sweetens the pudding and adds a little caramel depth where it touches the surface.

The step that matters

Boil the pudding for 2 hours. Steaming must be gentle and continuous over the full time, because the eggs and suet need sustained heat to set and cook through. Letting the water boil dry or stop can leave the pudding heavy or undercooked in the centre.

Flavor stand-ins for the lemon

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

  1. Figbetter flavor fit
  2. Plumbetter flavor fit
  3. Vanillabetter flavor fit
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against apple, currant, raisin, sugar, bread, egg, brandy. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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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