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Dessert

Paradise Pudding

A steamed or boiled pudding made with bread crumbs, suet, eggs, apples, currants, raisins, milk, sugar, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 ↓

Paradise Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Combine bread crumbs, suet, eggs, minced apples, currants, raisins, milk, and spices in a large bowl.

  2. Mix in sugar and enough flour to thicken the mixture, then transfer the mixture into a mold.

  3. Steam or boil for 3½ hours until cooked through.

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

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

  3. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  4. Apple + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,104 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

  5. Apple + curranttop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,918 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

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 it set as it cooks.
Bread crumbs
Provide the bulk and absorb liquid to give the pudding body.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and rich.
Apples
Add moisture and a fruity, tart flavour.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps give the pudding its flavour.

The step that matters

Steam or boil for the full time. The pudding is a thick, dense mixture, so it needs a long, gentle cook to heat through evenly. Cutting the time short can leave the centre set poorly or undercooked. Keep the water at a steady simmer so the mold cooks gently.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, egg, apple, raisin, milk, sugar, flour):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, egg, apple, raisin, milk, sugar, flour. 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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