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
Make the pudding
Flour the suet and raisins before adding them to the batter.
In a large bowl, combine the suet, eggs, sweet milk, raisins, flour, baking powder, spices, and salt, then mix until well combined.
Pour the mixture into a greased pudding mold.
Boil for 2 hours.
Make the sauce
Beat butter and sugar to a cream.
Fold in the beaten egg white.
Flavor the sauce to taste.
Serve
Serve with the sauce.
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.
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Raisin + flourtop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together9,075 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Milk + raisintop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,155 recipes
Shared aroma: decanoic acid (acides aroma).
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Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Egg + milktop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together88,785 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Eggs
- Bind the batter and add structure and richness as they set during cooking.
- Flour
- Provides the structure that holds the pudding together as it cooks.
- Suet
- Adds fat that keeps the pudding tender and moist.
- Baking powder
- Releases gas that lifts the batter so the pudding is light rather than dense.
- Sweet milk
- Adds moisture and helps the flour hydrate into a cohesive batter.
- Raisins
- Add sweetness and chewy pockets of fruit throughout the pudding.
The step that matters
Flour the suet and raisins before adding them to the batter. A light coating of flour helps the heavy suet and raisins stay suspended in the batter instead of sinking to the bottom during cooking, so they are distributed evenly.
“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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