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Dessert

Suet Pudding

A steamed or boiled suet pudding made with molasses, currants, raisins, suet, sugar, flour, milk, cloves, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Raisin and flour 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 ↓

Suet Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Combine molasses, currants, raisins, suet, sugar, flour, milk, cloves, salt, and baking soda in a large bowl, then mix until well combined.

  2. Butter a mold or flour a cloth.

Cook

  1. Pour the mixture into the mold or cloth.

  2. Steam for 3 hours or boil for 2½ hours.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Raisin + clovetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,070 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  4. Currant + raisintop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,180 recipes

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

  5. Molasses + sugartop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Molasses
Adds dark sweetness, moisture and a rich, slightly bitter flavour.
Flour
Forms the structure that holds the pudding together as it cooks.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and tender during long cooking.
Baking soda
Reacts with the molasses's acidity to help the pudding rise and lighten.
Currants
Add chewy texture and concentrated fruity sweetness.
Raisins
Add chewy texture and concentrated fruity sweetness.

The step that matters

Pour the mixture into the mold or cloth. The mold must be buttered or the cloth floured so the pudding releases cleanly. Leave room for expansion, since the batter rises as it cooks.

Swap the currant

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

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

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

More suet pudding recipes

Lemon 28Boiled 19Steamed 12Potato 11Apple 10Raisin 10 See all 649 →

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