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Dessert

Diplomatic Pudding

A rich pudding of cream, sugar, lemon rind, bread crumbs, suet, marrow, raisins, orange peel, currants, eggs, nutmeg, rum, and orange water, served with sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 18 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and raisin match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,075 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Diplomatic Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Combine cream, loaf sugar, and grated lemon rind in an enamelled saucepan over gentle heat.

  2. When nearly boiling, stir in bread crumbs, flour, beef suet, and beef marrow.

  3. Cook the mixture for 10 minutes.

  4. Transfer the mixture to a basin and let it cool.

Mix the pudding

  1. Mix together the minced raisins, chopped orange peel, currants, sultana raisins, and beaten eggs.

  2. Add grated nutmeg, rum, and orange water to the mixture.

  3. Beat the mixture for 15 minutes.

Boil and serve

  1. Butter a mold and decorate it with Muscadel raisins.

  2. Pour the pudding mixture into the mold.

  3. Tie the mold securely.

  4. Boil the mold rapidly for 2 hours.

  5. Dissolve loaf sugar in the strained juice of sweet oranges.

  6. Boil the sauce until thick.

  7. Stir in rum.

  8. Serve the sauce with the pudding.

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. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Lemon + orangetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  3. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  4. Bread + beeftop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  5. Raisin + orangetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,684 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 boils.
Bread crumbs
Provide the bulk and soft body that holds the pudding together.
Beef suet
Adds richness and a moist, tender texture as it melts during cooking.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness to the base mixture.
Loaf sugar
Adds sweetness and helps give the pudding its flavour and browning.
Currants
Add sweetness, chew and moisture through the pudding.

The step that matters

Boil the mold rapidly for 2 hours. The mold must stay fully submerged in briskly boiling water for the whole time. If the water drops or the mold is loosely tied, the pudding cooks unevenly and may turn out heavy or waterlogged.

Swap the orange

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cream, sugar, lemon, bread, flour, beef, raisin):

  1. Figfits better
  2. Vanillafits about as well
  3. Orangethe original
  4. Coconutfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, sugar, lemon, bread, flour, beef, raisin. 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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