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Dessert

Dried Fruit Pudding

A steamed pudding made with bread crumbs, sugar, suet, dried fruit, spices, orange zest, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and mace are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,557 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Dried Fruit Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fruit

  1. Soak the dried cherries and peaches overnight in just enough water to cover them.

  2. In the morning, remove the fruit from the water, avoiding any grit at the bottom, and drain it.

  3. Partially dry the fruit with a towel.

Make and steam the pudding

  1. Beat the eggs and mix in the grated rind and juice of the orange.

  2. Combine the egg mixture with the other ingredients and mix well.

  3. Tie the pudding mixture in a cloth, leaving little room for it to swell.

  4. Steam the pudding for 3 hours.

  5. When done, briefly plunge the pudding in cold water before serving.

Serve

  1. Serve with a rich 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. Nutmeg + macetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Peach + orangetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together385 recipes

    Shared aroma: pinene (pine, turpentine).

  3. Nutmeg + orangetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,746 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Peach + nutmegtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together342 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Bread crumbs
Provide the bulk and body that hold the pudding together.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and rich as it steams.
Eggs
Bind the mixture so it sets firmly when steamed.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and a deeper, molasses-like flavor.
Dried cherries
Add concentrated fruit flavor and chewy texture.
Dried peaches
Add concentrated fruit flavor and chewy texture.

The step that matters

Tie the pudding loosely in the cloth. The mixture expands as it heats and steams. Leaving little room for it to swell lets it rise and set without bursting the cloth or becoming misshapen.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, sugar, peach, nutmeg, orange, egg):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Allspicefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, sugar, peach, nutmeg, orange, egg. 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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