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Boiled Suet Pudding

A boiled pudding made with suet or butter, molasses, milk, raisins, currants, flour, salt, baking soda, cinnamon, cloves, and nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Boiled Suet Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Mix

  1. In a large bowl, mix the suet (or butter), molasses, milk, raisins, currants, flour, salt, baking soda, cinnamon, cloves, and nutmeg until well combined.

Boil and serve

  1. Tie the mixture in a cloth securely.

  2. Boil the wrapped pudding in water for 4 hours.

  3. Serve with wine or foamy 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 + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  4. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  5. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Forms the bulk and structure of the pudding as it sets.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and rich during long steaming.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, dark color and a moist, dense texture.
Baking soda
Reacts with the molasses acidity to help the pudding rise and lighten.
Milk
Hydrates the flour so the batter forms a cohesive mixture.

The step that matters

Securing the cloth. If the cloth is not tied tightly, water can seep into the pudding during the long boil, making it soggy and loose.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Applefits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, molasses, milk, raisin, flour, cinnamon, clove. 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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