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Dessert

Suet Pudding

A steamed pudding made with sour milk, molasses, suet, raisins, flour, spices, and baked in a mold.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Suet Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. In a large bowl, combine sour milk, molasses, suet, and raisins, and mix well.

  2. In another bowl, whisk together flour, salt, baking soda, cloves, cinnamon, and nutmeg.

  3. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture, stirring until combined.

Steam or boil

  1. Pour the batter into a greased pudding mold.

  2. Steam for 3 hours or boil for 2.5 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. Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Raisin + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

What each ingredient does

Sour milk
Its acidity reacts with the baking soda so the pudding rises and turns tender.
Molasses
Adds moisture, dark colour and rich sweetness to the batter.
Suet
Its fat keeps the pudding moist and gives it a rich, tender crumb.
All-purpose flour
Provides the structure that holds the pudding together as it cooks.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk to produce gas that leavens the pudding.

The step that matters

Adding the dry ingredients to the wet mixture. Stirring only until combined keeps gluten development low, so the pudding stays tender rather than tough and dense.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Cardamomfits about as well
  2. Clovethe original
  3. Allspicefits about as well
  4. Gingerfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, molasses, raisin, flour, cinnamon, nutmeg. 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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