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Dessert

Alexandra Pudding

A suet and sago pudding with raisins, eggs, and brandy, baked in a mold.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Raisin and almond are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,781 recipes. Both carry 2-nonanone, which smells fruity, floral. The science ↓

Alexandra Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. In a basin, combine bread crumbs, sago, suet, sugar, sultana raisins, beaten eggs, brandy, and rum.

  2. Decorate the bottom of a well-buttered mold with green angelica, sultana raisins, candied peel, almonds, ginger, or any dried fruit.

  3. Pour the mixture into the mold.

Cook and serve

  1. Place the mold in a saucepan of boiling water, ensuring the water covers half of the mold.

  2. Boil gently for two hours over low heat.

  3. Carefully remove the mold and serve with wine 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. Raisin + almondtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,781 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  2. Brandy + rumtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,058 recipes

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

  3. Angelica + almondtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together135 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  4. Raisin + angelicatop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together49 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Raisin + brandytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked 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 set the pudding as it cooks.
Bread crumbs
Provide the body of the pudding and absorb the liquids.
Suet
Adds richness and a moist, tender texture to the pudding.
Sago
Thickens the mixture and gives the pudding a soft, light texture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the pudding brown lightly.

The step that matters

Boil gently over low heat. Boiling too hard can make the water splash into the mold or toughen the eggs and crumbs, leaving the pudding rough and uneven. Keeping the water at a gentle simmer cooks the custard-like mixture evenly and keeps it tender.

Swap the angelica

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Clovefits better
  4. Angelicathe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, sugar, raisin, egg, brandy, rum, almond. 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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