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Dessert

Plain Fruit Pudding

A steamed pudding made with suet, flour, currants, molasses, milk, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and cinnamon 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 ↓

Plain Fruit Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Mix the batter

  1. In a large bowl, combine the suet, flour, currants, molasses, milk, baking soda, salt, ginger, cloves, and cinnamon, and mix until well combined.

Steam

  1. Transfer the mixture to a greased pudding mold.

  2. Steam or boil for 3 to 4 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. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Ginger + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,380 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Ginger + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

What each ingredient does

Suet
Adds richness and a tender, moist crumb as it melts during cooking.
All-purpose flour
Provides the structure that holds the pudding together.
Molasses
Adds dark sweetness and moisture, along with a deep, rich flavour.
Baking soda
Reacts with the molasses acid to lighten the batter and help it rise.
Currants
Add sweet, chewy bites of fruit throughout the pudding.

The step that matters

Keeping the mold sealed and the water simmering. Steaming cooks the pudding gently and evenly over a long time. If the water boils dry or the mold is poorly covered, the pudding can dry out or cook unevenly, so the pot needs steady water levels throughout the 3 to 4 hours.

Swap the currant

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

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

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